An Old Faithful Murder

by Valerie Wolzien

  After the presentation of the evening’s show (an interesting talk on the lives and deaths of early explorers in the park), Susan hung around to see if anyone approached the ranger. Except for the predictable presence of Dr. Cockburn, there were no stragglers. Apparently no one had any confessions to make. Irving Cockburn knew nothing specific; however, he generously shared his opinions and theories with anyone who would listen.

  All in all, it had been a very strange evening. The Ericksens had filed out immediately after the program, except for Carlton and his family. The teenagers had gotten together as people do who, finding themselves in a foreign country, discover a common language among themselves. Susan and Jed stopped for a moment to speak to Joyce and Carlton about including all the children on the next day’s trip. It turned out that the Ericksens were planning to travel on the same trails. But everyone agreed that the teens would be happiest together—and happier with Susan and Jed, who were slower skiers. The Henshaws had gone back to the lodge for a quick drink with Kathleen and Jerry and then fallen, exhausted, into bed.

  The next morning Susan and Jed had discovered the disadvantage of traveling with their children and their children’s friends. The youngsters made them feel old. Susan and Jed had ordered the teens to wait for them at various places on the trail, and accepted the abuse heaped on them for being “so slow.” They would be coming to one of those points soon. Susan looked back to see how her husband was getting along. He waved a ski pole at her, and she slowed down.

  “Are you okay? You’ve been awfully quiet,” he asked, skiing up beside her. “You know, we’re not really very far from the Visitor’s Center—as the crow flies. If you want to, you could probably find a shortcut back.” He again pulled the map out.

  “No, I’m fine. I was just thinking. Aren’t we supposed to be meeting up with the kids soon?”

  “I told Chad and C.J. to wait at the bridge across this stream.” He pointed to the beautiful rushing water, lined with thick banks of ice, that their trail had been following ever since the waterfall.

  “Are we going to be forced to listen to a bunch of sarcastic comments about our skiing ability?”

  “Probably—look, there they are.”

  The four children were sitting on mounds of snow piled up along the rails of the bridge. They waved excitedly when they spied Susan and Jed.

  “Did you see them?”

  “Do you believe how huge the male was?”

  “Chad almost skied right past the mother and the baby—he would have, too, if Heather hadn’t called out to him,” Chrissy said, looking at her parents. “You did see them, didn’t you?”

  “See what?” Jed asked.

  “The moose! The moose eating seaweed …”

  “Aquatic plants, Chad, not seaweed,” his sister corrected him. “We’re a long way from the sea.”

  “The point,” insisted Chad, “is not what they were eating, but that they were there. And whether Mom and Dad saw them.”

  “We must have missed them. Where exactly were they?”

  “And how many were there?” Susan added.

  “Three. A mother and her son in the middle of the water first, and then a little further on, a monstrous buck,” C.J. answered.

  “I don’t know how you missed them,” Chad added. “They were gigantic!”

  “I spend most of the time watching the trail directly in front of the tips of my skis,” Susan admitted. “It seems to help me balance.”

  “I think you’re doing much better, Mrs. Henshaw,” Heather said.

  “Thank you. I think so, too,” Susan agreed, and promptly slid off the bridge and into the snow.

  “Sometimes she’s better than others,” Jed laughed, handing the backpack containing their lunches to his son. “Anyone thirsty?” he asked, helping his wife to her feet.

  “Dying. I drank all the juice I was carrying in the first hour or so. Who would have thought you could get so dried out in such cold weather?” Heather asked rhetorically.

  “There are some extra cans of apple juice in the pack, but don’t forget that the trip back is going to be equally long.”

  “Maybe not. We’ve been mainly traveling uphill. So we should be able to do the return in a shorter time,” C.J. suggested.

  “In any case, we’d better get going. I’d say we’re only halfway to the point where we were planning to lunch.”

  “I think I can. I think I can,” Susan muttered to herself. Whether that worked or whether the realization that her lunch and another drink were waiting at their destination was the inspiration, make it she did.

  “We weren’t sure whose lunch was whose, so we just ate them in order. We left the two ones on the bottom for you—and two extra cans of juice,” Chad explained, folding up the papers his food had been wrapped in. The kids had already finished their lunch when Susan and Jed finally arrived at the path overlooking the side of Old Faithful opposite the Visitor’s Center.

  “So where are you all going?” Susan asked, sinking to the spot Chad had just vacated on the broken branch of a large pine tree.

  “We’re going to ski up to the geyser,” Chrissy said, pointing to the large cone rising out of the middle of a clearing in the snow. “We finished eating a long time ago. We were just waiting for you to get here.”

  “Well, have fun,” Susan said. “There’s a little steam coming from the cone. I wonder if we’re in time to see an eruption.” From here, she meant: she knew she wasn’t going to ski one more foot than was absolutely necessary. “Thanks.” She accepted the box lunch from Jed and opened it. “What is this?”

  Jed peered at the sandwich in her hand. “Looks like peanut butter, banana, and trail mix on whole wheat. Probably very healthy.”

  Susan gazed at it doubtfully, but only for a moment. “I’m starving,” she confessed, putting a corner of the bread in her mouth. She leaned back against a tree trunk and chewed, looking about her. She had, she decided, truly been spending too much time looking at her skis and not at the extraordinary scenery. The sun was glistening off the snow; steam from the geyser twisted in a thin spiral up into the deep blue sky. As she watched, a large black raven, evidently startled by the kids skiing toward it, flew into the air, loudly cawing as it went. She took another large bite of the sandwich, chewed it, and sighed contentedly. This was living.

  And then Chrissy called to her parents, telling them that Heather and C.J.’s grandfather was dead.

  TWELVE

  The National Park Service insists that all visitors remain on the well-marked paths and wooden boardwalks provided. This is especially true for the areas around popular attractions. Old Faithful Geyser is, for many tourists, the focal point of the park, a must-see on their checklist of national sights. As such, it is surrounded by man-made barriers. On the side nearest the Visitor’s Center and Snow Lodge, there are benches built in a semicircular pattern. In the summertime these benches are permanently filled with people waiting for the next regular eruption of the geyser. The weather makes this an impossible pastime in the winter. The far side of Old Faithful is bounded by wooden boardwalks, raised off the ground to allow water from the geyser to pass underneath.

  George Ericksen’s body was lying in the path of one of these streams of water. The first ranger on the scene had had extensive first aid training and, luckily, a good stomach. Because George Ericksen, in death, in the natural world he professed to love so much, was only a carcass to the nearly starving scavengers struggling to live through the harsh wilderness winter. When she saw him, Susan was glad she hadn’t finished her lunch.

  Not that there was much time to think. Heather, surprisingly, took the death better than C.J., who had burst into tears and was willing to be comforted by Susan.

  Jed worked to keep the ravens away from what they thought was rightfully theirs, and Susan led the sniffling boy over to a nearby bench, where his sister was waiting, her back resolutely turned to Old Faithful and the body that lay in its shade. “You two sit here. Help will come
soon,” she said, although she was sure of nothing of the kind. They had met only two other skiers on the way here, a young couple who worked at the lodge and who reported that they zip up, around the geyser, and back each morning for the exercise. Chad and Chrissy had taken off to find help, heading for the Visitor’s Center, calling loudly, hoping to attract the attention of the people they could see in the distance.

  “Susan …” Jed called out to her.

  “I’m just going to go talk with my husband.” She answered his call with a wave. “You can look after your brother for a few minutes, can’t you?”

  Heather stared off into the forest surrounding them. “Sure, Mrs. Henshaw. We’ll be okay.”

  But one look at the girl’s pale face convinced Susan otherwise. “I’ll be right back,” she assured them, miraculously skiing back up the slippery trail without falling.

  “Do you have any idea if this thing is going to explode soon?” Jed asked her, shaking a pole at an approaching bird.

  “Erupt. They don’t explode, they erupt.…” She glanced quickly at the geyser and the body lying at its base. “Oh, my God!”

  “You see what I mean.”

  And she did. George Ericksen’s body was lying directly in the path the water had taken the last time the geyser had erupted. And it was the same path the liquid would follow when it happened again.

  “Should we move him?”

  “That’s what I was wondering.”

  “You’re not supposed to move a murder victim. Not until the police or whoever is in charge—”

  “But it will boil him. Not that the birds haven’t already done a lot of damage to the body, but still …” Jed protested. “And we don’t know that he was murdered, Sue.”

  “I suppose the same thing would be true in the case of a fatal accident,” she mused, staring down at the points of her skis.

  “There’s no reason to assume that this is a murder,” Jed insisted, trying to salvage their vacation.

  “There is every reason to assume it’s a murder,” she argued, steeling herself for a second look at the body and the area. “Jed, don’t move!”

  “What?” He looked around anxiously.

  “Look, we’ve been making tracks in the snow. We’ve probably destroyed valuable evidence.” She looked at the crisscrossing lines from multiple ski tracks.

  “I think it’s a little late to worry about that. And we have to keep the animals away.”

  Susan sighed. He had a point. The ravens were flying around, and every once in a while a coyote peeked out of the forest. “It erupts every hour, so there’s probably another coming sometime soon. Let’s just hope that help arrives before then.” Susan heard a sound behind her and looked around. “Jed! The kids’ parents! That’s Carlton and Joyce, isn’t it?”

  A second or two later, Heather spied them and called out, jumping up and waving her arms around. “Mom! Dad! It’s Grandpa! He’s … He’s …” But apparently she couldn’t bring herself to continue.

  “We know. We saw Chad and Chrissy. We know,” Joyce repeated herself, swinging her arms and pumping her legs even faster.

  “Where … ?” Carlton began.

  “Up here! He’s up here,” Jed called out, waving to attract attention.

  Susan, relieved that Chad had made contact with someone, scooted backward on her skis, hoping to ease Carlton’s path to his father. Carlton bettered his wife’s speed and slid to a stop at the edge of the snow. The body was only a few feet away.

  No one interrupted his moment of silence. “All that blood. It really is him. He really is dead.” Carlton looked around. At Susan. At Jed. “I’m sorry. It must seem that I’m babbling. It’s just that, after yesterday afternoon, I thought that perhaps your son was mistaken. That it was only another dummy.”

  “I’m afraid this isn’t a dummy. I’m very sorry,” Susan said, trying to console him.

  “No, it’s definitely my father.”

  Susan watched his reactions carefully, already considering suspects, motives. Carlton pushed the springs that kept his skis on, and walked toward the body. He raised one hand to deflect some spray that was now spurting energetically from the geyser; with the other, he gently touched the dead man’s chin—the only part of his body available for touching, the rest being covered either with clothing or blood. “We have to move him,” he insisted, without looking up.

  “I don’t think—”

  “This thing has erupted over him once already. We’d better do something before it happens again!”

  Jed looked more closely and saw that what the other man said was true. That, in fact, various places on the face bore unmistakable spots where the skin had been badly burned. And he felt a sharp sting when the now seriously splashing geyser threw burning liquid on his own face. There was a breeze blowing in their direction. Did the geyser get more active before or after an eruption? There was little time to worry about that now. Carlton Ericksen had decided to move his father, and he was doing it. Jed reached over to grab the dead man’s feet, which were dragging on the ground, and they picked up the body and laid it gently on the boardwalk. It wasn’t an easy task: George Ericksen was a big man, and his clothing was water-soaked.

  When they were done, Joyce joined them. Jed and Susan were silent as Joyce and Carlton looked at the dead man. Then Joyce stooped down, pulled a navy scarf from around her neck, and draped it across her father-in-law’s face. Susan was relieved when the blood was out of sight. More relieved than she would have expected. It wasn’t, after all, as though she had really even known the dead man—or liked what she had known about him. But who had wanted him dead?

  She didn’t have a lot of time to think about it; a familiar interruption was coming.

  “It looks like there’s a problem here. Anything a doctor can do?” It was Irving Cockburn, and he wasn’t alone. On either side of him skied a young woman.

  “There’s been an accident.…” Jed began.

  “We’ll go get help,” the tallest of the two women offered. The other nodded, and without a word from anyone, they took off.

  “Looks like they’re not very good in a crisis,” Irving commented, turning to watch them. “Some people aren’t, of course. And without medical training, they probably don’t improve those particular skills.”

  Susan wondered if their burst of enthusiasm had been inspired by a desire to escape the company in which they found themselves. She knew that’s the way she would feel.

  “Did he faint? Is it hypothermia?” Irving Cockburn asked, taking off his skis and kneeling down beside the body. “This scarf might be keeping the sun from his eyes, but the man needs air. Of course, I’m only a psychiatrist (Susan thought he said this in the manner of someone hoping to impress by understatement), but I would have thought that common sense—” He stopped abruptly as the scarf came off George’s face. “This man is dead!”

  Susan found herself smiling at the indignation in his voice.

  “And,” he continued, “although it might be a little early to mention it, it appears to me that someone has killed him.” With a shaking hand, he replaced the scarf.

  A doctor who got nervous at the sight of blood? Susan wondered if that explained his choice of speciality.

  “Although it could have been a bear attack. They’re common in this part of the country, I understand.”

  Jed started to explain hibernation, and Susan, feeling slightly ill at her second sight of George Ericksen’s wounds, decided to take a quick walk. It wouldn’t hurt to look around, if she was careful to travel in already made tracks. Technically, of course, they were off the marked trails and breaking national park rules, but in the case of murder, she thought exceptions would be made.

  When she returned to the group five minutes later, Jed was explaining that any claw marks to be found on the body were probably not made by bears. “I believe,” Jed was saying, “that any marks were caused by the coyote that was here when we approached. And I really …” he added, looking at Heath
er and C.J., “I really think we should talk about this when the family isn’t around.”

  “I don’t think you have to talk about it anymore,” Susan said, skiing up to them. “I’ve found the murder weapon.”

  THIRTEEN

  A small shovel had been used to split open George Ericksen’s skull. Susan and Jed were discussing it, sitting at their favorite corner table in the bar.

  “I wouldn’t have thought there were many around. Maybe a few that the rangers need to dig snowmobiles out of drifts, but still, only a few. Are you sure?” Susan asked.

  “I’ve seen them hanging off the day packs of half a dozen skiers—maybe more. I don’t know what they use them for, but they’re common equipment. You can even buy them over at the ski shack.”

  “So anyone could have one,” Susan said.

  “Anyone.” Her husband confirmed her analysis of the situation.

  They were warming their feet in front of the fireplace by their table, discussing the day. Their children, deserted by their friends in this family crisis, had gone on a ranger hike. Susan and Jed were taking advantage of the time alone.

  “How do you think the kids are dealing with this?” Susan asked, sounding worried.

  “Pretty well. Neither of them was close enough to really examine the wound, thank goodness. And they don’t actually know George Ericksen—they only met him two days ago. I think they’re upset because Heather and C.J. are upset.”

  “Hmm. I was surprised by C.J. He didn’t strike me as the nervous type—and he’s been living in Europe for the past few years. It doesn’t seem likely that he would be all that close to his grandfather.”