by Rob Phillips
When they got Johnson secured in the backseat of Hargraves’ truck, the two officers went and looked through the Dodge. There were no bear parts, but as McCain had seen before, there were signs of dried blood in the bed of the truck. They found a rifle and a shotgun under the bench seat in the front of the truck and confiscated them.
Hargraves took Johnson to Yakima to be booked into the county jail, while McCain awaited the wrecker that would be arriving, whenever the spirit moved them, to pull Teddy’s truck off the stump and haul it to the impoundment yard next to the sheriff’s office.
McCain told himself he’d wait for an hour to meet the wrecker and show them where the truck was. If they didn’t show up by then, they could just find the thing by themselves. He knew Jack was starving, as it was way past his dinner time, and McCain was feeling a little peckish himself.
The next day, with a search warrant in hand, Hargraves, McCain, and Jack went up to the Johnson place in Tieton to look for more bear parts and anything else that might incriminate the two men in their quest for bear bladders. This time they found no buried bear parts. They did, however, find a couple plastic containers in a refrigerator out in the garage with a bladder in each.
The day after the Johnson brothers had been arrested, Kittitas County sheriff’s deputies located and arrested Aaron Armitage. He was staying at Teddy’s cabin in Cle Elum. They had a search warrant, based on the arrest of Teddy, and found two more plastic containers with bladders in them, along with four bear hides rolled up in plastic bags in a chest freezer.
Chapter 21
One evening, a few days after the run-in with the Johnson brothers, McCain was at home, replenishing his to-go pack with more snacks and water when he started thinking about the little toothpick wrapper he had picked up in the mountains and given to Sinclair. He again wondered if it might have come from the vehicle the killer used to transport the body. He and Sinclair had really spent very little time in Antonio’s the night they went, so he decided to visit the bar again. It was a longshot, but he decided to check it out.
He left Jack in the cool air-conditioned house, jumped into his Tundra and headed to Yakima. McCain wasn’t sure what or who he expected to find when he arrived at the place, but figured he’d go into the bar, look around, and have a chat with the bartender. It took him a while, but he found a place to park and headed for the bar. As he entered, he was almost overwhelmed by the number of people in the place. It might have been busier and louder than when he was there with Sinclair. The tables were all full, as were all the seats at the bar. Once his eyes adjusted from the bright evening light outside, McCain scanned the room and caught the eyes of a familiar face looking right back at him.
“Crap,” he said to himself. It was Andrea Parker. As soon as she saw him, she headed his way. The biologist from work didn’t look like a biologist now. Most of the time she wore glasses, and her hair was usually up in a bun. But tonight there were no spectacles, and her light brown hair was down over her shoulders. McCain tried not to look, but there was plenty of cleavage bursting out of her low-cut red top too.
“Hey, Luke,” Parker said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before.”
“Well, you know me,” he said. “I’m not a big drinker.”
“So, what brings you here tonight?” she asked.
“I’m looking for a buddy,” he said. “But I don’t see him.”
“Do I know him?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” McCain said. “He’s here once in a while. I was driving by and thought I would just stick my head in to see if he’s here tonight and say hello.”
“Why didn’t you call him?” she asked.
McCain wanted to say, “It’s none of your damn business!” but instead he said, “I did, no answer. I figured he might not be able to hear his phone as loud as this place is.”
“You can come join us if you want,” she said.
“Aw, I better not,” McCain said. “My dog’s at home and if I don’t make it back fairly soon, he’ll get mad at me and pee on the couch or something.”
Parker made a face like she’d just smelled a fart and said, “Well, just thought I would ask. See you at work.”
“Not if I see you first,” he said, quiet enough that she couldn’t hear him over the roar of the bar crowd as she walked away.
Before he turned and walked out, he took another hard look around the bar and saw no one else he recognized. He walked over to the bar, and when the bartender came over, McCain said, “I’m looking for a friend. About my age, well-built guy, dark brown hair, a little shorter than me, wears a cowboy hat sometimes.”
The bartender thought about it a few seconds and said, “Sounds like about half the dudes who come in here, except for the cowboy hat. This isn’t a goat-roper bar. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone with a cowboy hat in here.”
“Yeah, okay, well thanks,” McCain said as he turned and headed for the door. When he stepped through the threshold, he ran headlong into Deputies Williams, Stratford and Garcia. In fact, he about bowled them over.
“Hey, slow down,” Garcia said, kind of pissed. Then he saw who it was. “Oh hey, McCain.”
McCain stopped and looked at the three guys, all off duty in street clothes, and said, “Hey, guys.”
“What’s the big hurry?” Williams asked.
“Jack’s at the neighbors, and I need to take him off their hands before he eats them outta house and home,” he lied.
“No time to join us for dinner?” Garcia asked. “I remember something about you owing me one for hauling that bear poacher into town for you the other day.”
“I believe I said lunch,” McCain said. “Besides, this place is way too rich for my blood. I was thinking more along the lines of Miner’s, or for you, McDonald’s.”
“Stratford here is the big spender,” Williams said. “He’s celebrating his one-year anniversary with the department, and he’s buying.”
“Food’s good here?” McCain asked Stratford.
“So, I’ve heard,” he said. “I’ve never eaten here before.”
Everyone said quick goodbyes, and the three deputies went on into the bar as McCain headed to his truck.
As he drove home, McCain thought about running into the deputies. He wondered if it really was Stratford’s first time dining there. What about Williams and Garcia? He wondered how often they stopped in for a drink.
Sinclair called him first thing the next morning. McCain was just loading Jack into the truck to head up Chinook Pass to Bumping Lake. A woman had called in and said she thought she had shot a cougar that had been prowling around the cabins. Evidently one of the neighbor’s cock-a-poos was missing, and they were worried the mountain lion might have taken up snacking on family pets. The woman who called in said she saw the cougar sneaking up on another neighbor’s dog, so she pulled out her husband’s 30-30 rifle and shot at the cat.
“Hey!” McCain said into the phone. “I think Simon the TV reporter has a little crush on you. I’ve seen you on TV with him like four times now.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “Listen, we might have something on your idea about the trail cameras. We got a call from a local guy who just reviewed his photos from April and thinks there’s something on one of his cameras we might want to see.”
“When can you see them?”
“I told the guy we’d come by later today. Are you available at four?”
McCain told her he was, and she gave him the address for SPD&G Accounting on the west side of Yakima. McCain told her he’d meet her at the accounting company at four o’clock and clicked off.
As he drove up toward Chinook Pass and Bumping Lake, McCain wondered what might be on the trail cameras. Even if it was a photo of a person, possibly the killer, would they be able to see enough detail in the dark of the new moon night to tell who it was?
When he arrived at the little resort on Bumping Lake, a petite, silver-haired lady of about seventy-five, wearing tan shorts, a pink
hooded sweatshirt and a pink tennis visor, came hustling out of the store.
“Mrs. Thomas?” McCain asked as he climbed out of his WDFW pickup. “I’m Luke McCain.”
“Yes, I’m Hilda Thomas,” the lady said. “I assume you know why I called?”
“I do. Can you take me to where you shot at the cougar?”
“I can,” she said. “I would never think of shooting such a beautiful animal, but the thing was stalking the Olson’s dog, Duke. And you heard that a cougar snatched the Puttman’s little cock-a-poo?”
“I did,” McCain said. “Should we drive, or can we walk?”
“We can walk. That way you can see the cougar tracks.”
McCain opened the door, let Jack out, and started out after the little lady who was moving up the road at a brisk pace. When they caught up to her, she turned and looked at Jack. “That’s a beautiful Lab. Aren’t they the best? Bob and I have had six Labs over the years, and they’ve all been really good pets. And they were good hunters too. Bob used to hunt pheasants and ducks, and our Labs went everywhere with him.”
“They are great hunters and pets,” McCain agreed. “Jack here, he’s mostly a chow hound. But once in a while he earns his keep.”
Jack was looking around to see if there were any squirrels that needed chasing.
“Right here is one of the cougar tracks,” Thomas said, pointing to the dirt road. “See it. The thing’s been prowling around here for days.”
Sure enough, there in the middle of the road, just as plain as day, was a mountain lion track. And by the size of the track, it was a big cat.
“Has anyone actually seen the cougar?”
“We’ve only caught glimpses of it in the headlights driving in and out of here at night. Well, that is, until I saw it today ready to pounce on Duke.”
“Any other pets missing besides the cock-a-poo?”
“No, but after Sheryl’s little LuLu went missing, everyone has kept their dogs close by.”
“Good plan. Now where did you shoot at the cougar?”
Mrs. Thomas led him past three more cabins and then turned to go around the back of the fourth.
“This is our cabin here,” she said as she walked quickly toward the back. “I was finishing up some dishes and looked out the window and saw Duke over by those trees. He likes to chase the squirrels. Then I saw a slight movement past the trees, and when I looked closer I could see it was a cougar, and he was staring right at the dog.”
The woman told McCain that her husband had passed away the year before, but he had taught her how to shoot, and she always kept a loaded rifle in the closet for protection.
“I’ve shot a couple coyotes that were slinking around here,” she said. “But never a cougar.”
McCain had her walk him over to where she thought the mountain lion was when she last saw it. Then he asked her to go back to her cabin.
“I’m going to go back to my truck and bring it up here. Then Jack and I will see if you hit the cougar, and if we can find it.”
“Oh, I hit it,” Thomas said. “I rarely miss.”
When McCain got back to where the cougar was last seen, he was carrying his shotgun. He figured buck shot at close range would be a better option if they were dealing with a wounded cougar. He searched the ground for a bit, keeping Jack at heel, and found the cougar’s tracks. He followed them for a few yards and then he saw blood. Sure enough, the confident little lady had not missed. Now, he hoped she had delivered a fatal shot.
McCain put Jack on the track and let him go, knowing that cougars will almost always climb a tree if pursued. But he didn’t need to worry about it. The dog only had gone about 200 yards when he found the cat, dead in a puddle of blood.
“I guess this old tom cat has eaten his last cock-a-poo,” McCain said to Jack. “Good job!”
As McCain dragged the dead cat back to his truck, he was trying to decide whether he needed to issue any kind of ticket to the nice little Hilda Thomas. He certainly could make a case that she had shot the cat out of season, without a license or tag. On the other hand, she was protecting personal property, even if it wasn’t hers.
Back at the truck he lifted the cougar up to his tailgate and examined it a little closer. The cat was very skinny, and his teeth were worn down to about nothing. No wonder he had turned to poaching pets, McCain thought. His days were numbered.
Based on that, he decided to not bother Mrs. Thomas with any tickets or fines. He went back, knocked on her door and told her that Jack had found the cougar, dead from a 30-30 bullet.
“I knew I hit it,” the little lady said. “I rarely miss.”
“Well, even though you got this one, it would probably be best if you call us if you see another cougar around the cabins. And, tell the folks around here to keep their pets close,” McCain instructed as he handed her his card.
As he was driving back toward town, McCain tried to envision Mrs. Thomas shooting the cougar. He was pretty impressed.
Soon after, McCain met Sinclair at the offices of Jeffry Smith, one of the owners of the accounting firm. Smith, a slim man of about five foot, ten inches, looked like a runner, or a bike rider. McCain couldn’t tell which. He was one of those guys that McCain always felt like offering a hoagie sandwich and a big piece of chocolate cake. With a thin face, and sunken cheeks, the man looked to be in a perpetual state of hunger.
“I saw your post on the Washington Bowhunter’s site,” Smith said. “I use the trail cameras for scouting purposes and just finally had the chance to go through the photos. I like to keep the cameras up all year just to see what’s out there. I’ve had a few stolen over the years, but most of the time if you place them right, you won’t lose them. And I’ve gotten some amazing photos.”
Smith explained that as an accountant he was extremely busy during March and April, filing taxes for businesses and people, so he hadn’t had a chance to check his cameras. And then, he had injured an Achilles tendon during a 5K mountain run up by Clear Lake, so he was on crutches for three months. He was only just now finally fit enough to get up to his cameras and check them out.
When he pulled up the photos that he thought Sinclair might be interested in, McCain could see nothing but a dark screen at first. Then McCain looked closer, and he saw the outline of what appeared to be a moth.
“I saw the moth,” Smith said. “I thought, nothing to see here, and I was just about to delete the photo when that darker spot in the upper right corner caught my eye.”
McCain and Sinclair moved in closer to look at the image on the computer screen. Smith scrolled over and enlarged the dark spot. It was grainy and very blurry, but it was definitely the image of a man, and he was pushing a game cart.
The date stamp on the photo was March 9, the day after Sonya Alverez had gone missing. Smith told McCain the camera was just off the road up Milk Canyon, above the Wenas.
“Can you pinpoint exactly on the map where this camera was?” McCain asked.
“I can do one better,” Smith said. “I have that onX map program, and I mark every one of my cameras, just so I can find them quickly.”
The accountant pulled out his smart phone, opened the map, and zoomed into where the camera in question was placed. McCain was interested to see why the camera had caught the killer but didn’t have any photos of investigators or the recovery team.
“We parked about 300 yards up the road from there,” McCain explained. “Did you get any other people on that camera?”
“Actually, I do have a few other photos with people and dogs in them,” Smith said. “Here’s one with a young guy and gal. And another with a golden retriever.”
“Those are the kids who found the body when they were shed hunting,” McCain said. “And that was their dog, Mutt, or maybe it was Jeff.”
Sinclair and McCain stared at the photo of the man and the cart, but with so little detail, there was no real way to identify him. McCain looked at the man’s head for a cowboy hat. That certainly would have been reco
gnizable, but he could see nothing.
“I’ll send the photo to our lab and let the technicians play with it,” Sinclair said. “But frankly, I’m guessing they’re not going to be able to do much with it.”
Sinclair gave her email address to Smith, so he could send the trail camera photo to her. She and McCain thanked Smith for calling and helping with the investigation.
“I’m guessing you’re right,” McCain said as they walked back to their rigs. “It’s something but it’s probably not going to help much.”
“All we can do is keep thinking and checking stuff out,” she said. “Sooner or later we’ll get a break.”
“Sooner would be good with me,” McCain said.
“Me too,” she agreed.
Chapter 22
The hot summer days of August quickly turned into the hot summer days of early September. Nothing was shaking on the investigation of the Cascade Killer. Sinclair was getting frustrated, and McCain felt that if they didn’t do something soon, they might have another dead woman out there somewhere.
McCain had been thinking about the other women who had done the David Copperfield in Colorado, and he decided he’d like to chat with the sheriff of Moffat County. He was just finishing up some computer work before heading home to feed Jack and decided to give the sheriff a call.
He forgot that Colorado was an hour ahead of Washington, so when he called he got a dispatcher who said Sheriff Armstrong was off duty. McCain gave the dispatcher his cell number and asked her to have the sheriff give him a call any time.
Surprisingly, Sheriff Armstrong called him back about ten minutes later.
“Hello, this is McCain,” he said into his phone.
“Yeah, this is Bill Armstrong down here in Craig, Colorado,” the sheriff said. “What can I do you for?”
“I’ve been sort of involved in this serial killer investigation here in Washington,” McCain said. “I think you talked to the FBI about the possible connection between our four dead women and a couple of missing women down your way?”
