“Well,” said Robert, “I feel like you’re doing a splendid job.”
John grumbled again, trying to keep his frustration at least somewhat in check. He could feel his phone buzzing against his pocket, but couldn’t be bothered to take off his gloves and answer. Besides, he figured it was likely Agent Sharp again. The medical examiner had confirmed it last night. Murder. An email had already been forwarded to them.
John felt his fingers numb beneath the gloves he’d bought from the gift shop, and the two hoodies he wore instead of a jacket were starting to prove insufficient against the insistent chill. Still, he refused to show it. He wouldn’t give Robert the satisfaction.
The small man with the slicked hair and missing teeth stood snug as a bug in his oversized coat. In John’s assessment, the old investigator looked like a stuffed potato. He also never stopped smiling, a facet which was starting to wear on John, especially since he’d started digging. The coughing, the paleness, though, seemed suspect. John wondered if Adele knew about Robert’s declining health.
John heaved another shovel of snow, his large muscles straining beneath his sweaters.
“Wait, look,” said Robert.
John pulled up sharp. He stared at the end of his shovel, where he dug, but spotted nothing. Just more snow, and hardened ice beneath.
He looked over at Robert and saw the investigator pointing toward the trees.
“What?” John said.
“An Alpine chough. See the crest feathers and the yellow beak? It’s beautiful. They’re rare in these parts. They mate for life, did you know that?”
John stared incredulously at the investigator and thought, for the briefest moment, there was a twinkle in the man’s eye. Was he having a go?
John felt cross at first, but the humor of the situation settled on him and a crack in his façade allowed a grin to slip along his lips. Robert’s eyes, still twinkling, surveyed the trees. Again, glancing away from John.
The brief flash of amusement faded in the face of the chill seeping through John’s lackluster clothing, exacerbated by the blisters forming on his fingers as he continued to dig. Mentally, he felt the wear of inevitably being out here all day, looking for two needles in a frosted haystack. The mountains were covered with snow, and the location of the Swiss couple couldn’t be determined. They would have to dig, and do it the hard way.
And so John set to one shovelful at a time.
***
Three hours into the digging, Robert wondered if he should mention something. He’d already determined the unlikelihood they would find the bodies. The Swiss couple had been missing for almost a week. If animals hadn’t found them first, then the snow would have covered them. Robert continued to glance to the trees. The birds were beautiful, yes, but really, his attention was caught by the structures beyond, in the mountains just past the resort.
He frowned.
He could hear John grumbling every time he shoveled another heap of snow and found nothing.
Robert supposed he should tell John his theory, but then decided the large man needed to get some of that pent-up aggression out. Toil and labor was good for exhausting an angry bear. Robert nodded to himself, trying to hide his amused expression as he moved past John and said, with a slight wave, “I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going? Out for a stroll while the rest of us dig?”
Robert pretended like he hadn’t heard and moved toward the leader of the French search and rescue team. He approached the woman, a local who knew the mountains better than anyone else. She’d grown up in the Alps, skiing and hiking and living with her family in cabins.
He approached the woman and nodded politely, catching her attention.
She was also digging with a partner who carried a shovel. She said, “May I help you?” The words came gasped, and her face was slick with sweat from the effort. She had a chipper disposition though. John approved of this. He quite liked happy people.
“Pardon me, mademoiselle,” he said, “you are doing a splendid job. Just one question. What is that?”
He pointed over his shoulder in the direction of the structures he’d spotted.
Her eyes narrowed. She had blonde hair, just like Adele. Robert smiled fondly at the thought of his young protégé. Adele Sharp was one of the brightest minds the DGSI had ever seen. Though they were too stupid to realize it sometimes.
He glanced back toward John and then returned his attention to the leader of the rescue team.
She wiped her gloved hand over her sweaty brow, pushing back the hem of her hood, and then said, still breathing deeply. “Old cabins. From the last resort. Before the new one bought the land.”
Robert frowned. “There used to be another resort here?”
“Yes. A family affair. Not nearly as expensive. The cabins aren’t in use anymore, though. Dusty, broken down.” She shrugged. “Sometimes squatters find their way in there, or high school kids. For the most part they’re just locked up.”
Robert bobbed his head. “Thank you. You have helped immensely.”
He turned and moved away, his feet crunching in the snow as he approached John once more.
He watched the large man shovel for a few more minutes, impressed by the sheer industry of Agent Renee’s musculature. Despite his grumbling, he moved more snow than the next two search teams combined.
“Excuse me,” Robert said at last, waving a little hand toward John.
Agent Renee grunted and slammed his shovel back in the snow, glancing up once more. “What?”
Renee had never been one for pleasantries.
“I think we’re looking in the wrong place,” said Robert.
John cleared his throat and tried not to roll his eyes. He didn’t try very hard. “What do you mean?”
Robert smiled pleasantly again. “You know the birds I showed you?”
“We’re not on about the bloody birds again, are we?”
“Give me a second. The birds, they like to follow tourists. They hope to find discarded food.”
“What’s your point?”
“The investigators, the search and rescue team, they wanted us to search along this path. Why?”
John stared at him, dumbfounded. For the first time, it was Robert’s turn to feel a bit of irritation. He missed Adele. She had never been slow on the uptake.
“Why are we searching here?” he said, slowing his words a bit, just in case John couldn’t keep up.
The tall, scar-faced agent grunted. “Near the ski trails. Most likely place to find the missing couple.”
“Yes, if they were attacked by a bear. But…” he said, patiently, allowing the silence to extend. He wanted John to reach it on his own, if only to give the man some of the joy of stumbling upon the conclusion. But John just stared back at him, his expression blank. The man wasn’t stupid. Robert knew that well. John was not a stupid man, but he did a good job pretending.
Testily, Robert said, “If they weren’t killed by a bear and they were murdered, like Adele’s victims—you got the email right?”
John nodded again. He let go of the shovel now, and it tilted over, still lodged in the snow, splattering into the white frost, disappearing from sight. “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me something I don’t want to hear,” he said, expressionless.
Robert smoothed his mustache. “If they were lured away by a murderer, I don’t think they would be near the trails.”
“Let me guess, you know where they are.”
“I say we check those buildings.”
John turned, following the direction of Robert’s pointed finger. The tall man and the small man both looked through the trees, standing in the snow, the backdrop of the resort outlining their silhouettes. They stared in the direction of the wooden structures, just hidden past the row of trees in the periphery of the forest nestled by the mountains beyond.
“What are those?” asked John, dispassionately.
“Abandon structures,” said Robert. “Old homes.
Used to belong to an old resort.”
“How long have you known this?”
“It just occurred to me,” said Robert, lying.
John’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, but he didn’t return to retrieve the shovel, and instead began stalking back toward where they’d parked their vehicle. He grumbled all the while, muttering to himself beneath his breath about grinning monkeys and old farts.
To be honest, Robert couldn’t discern half of it as his hearing had been going in the last ten years.
Robert moved over to where the shovel had fallen. He dusted it off a little bit, and then walked primly over to where the nearest search and rescue team was. He extended the shovel, nodding apologetically, and, once the bemused worker retrieved the tool, Robert turned and followed after John toward where they had parked.
CHAPTER TWELVE
John’s frown only deepened the closer they got to the old, abandoned outbuildings of the dilapidated resort. “Outside,” John said. “They just kept telling us to look outside. But what if they’re inside? No one thought inside,” he muttered. He shot a sidelong glance at Robert. “How do you think of this shit? You didn’t kill them, did you?”
As they pulled to a crunching halt on the side of the trail, John put the vehicle in park. He glanced down at Robert’s hand as the smaller man reached out and affectionately patted him on the knee. “It’s called investigating, my dear.” Robert wasn’t so petty as to add, You should try it. But his tone implied it well enough.
Robert unlatched his car door and stepped out. A split-second later, the old investigator loosed a strangled cry.
John looked sharply across the seats at Robert. He was waist deep in snow, stiff as an icicle, wide-eyed as he regarded John through the car. “Renee,” he said, urgently, “Renee, stop looking at me like a yard sign. I can’t move in this.” He wiggled his arms, causing some of the snow to splash around, but he stayed stuck.
“A good deduction,” said John, nodding seriously. “Do they call that investigating too?”
Robert stared crossly at the larger man. “I think you’re going to have to help me.”
John stared. “You want me to carry you?”
Robert crossed his arms where he stood waist deep in the snow. “No one’s been this way for a while. Things will only get worse. You need to help me.”
While Robert might have been the sort to avoid pettiness, John prided himself on it. “What’s the magic word?”
Without blinking, Robert said, “Would you please do me the favor of helping me to the cabins?”
John chuckled a bit and pushed open his own door, hearing the scrape of snow being shoved aside by the metal wing. He stepped out and immediately found himself sinking up to his thighs.
He felt the chill through his pants, but resisted the urge to tremble or yelp. He stomped over with giant loping strides toward where Robert was on the other side of the car. He took the man beneath the armpits and lifted him up like a child.
“John,” said Robert, “if you ever tell anyone about this, I will murder you in your sleep. It’ll be poison; it will be untraceable. Understand?”
John paused for a moment, still lifting the man, and he felt, for the first time, a chill that he couldn’t quite dislodge creep down his spine. He glanced up to Robert, whose head was higher than his. For the first time, the older man wasn’t smiling. His eyes were cold, black, and fixed directly on John’s face. “Don’t test me, Renee.”
John swallowed and readjusted his grip. He mimed zipping his lips and throwing away a key, and then, helping Robert along, he headed for the elevated steps at the end of the trail which led to the first row of cabins.
He placed Robert on the lowest steps. Here, trees shielded the stairwell from much of the snow. The snow would fall on the branches, and the wind would brush it away before it could tumble down. Still, large clumps of frost had made it through the branches and pockmarked portions of the wooden stairway.
John pointed immediately. “Footprints,” he said.
Robert, dusting himself off from where John had placed him, followed the large man’s attention. He noted the disturbance as well. “Good eye.”
John felt a flash of pride. He wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like Robert’s opinion mattered to him, did it? The footprints faded eventually, disappearing due to either wind or weather. But there had clearly been a disturbance in the snow.
“Do you think the killer lured them here?” John said, quietly.
“I think,” said Robert in a spurting whisper, “if there’s a killer in these mountains, an abandoned cabin would be the perfect place to hide out.”
Another shiver crept up John’s spine and he reached his gloved hand toward his pistol at his hip. Together, the two of them, mismatched as they were, moved up the creaking steps toward the wooden cabins, doing their best to remain as quiet as possible.
***
They checked three of the cabins. Only a fourth remained. The other three had been locked with a couple of windows broken, suggesting perhaps animals or vagabonds. But Robert and John had peered in, using the flashlights search and rescue had provided, and hadn’t spotted anything untoward. One of the cabins had a pile of raccoon droppings in the middle of the floor, but besides that—which had elicited a chuckle from John—they had been empty.
Still, Robert was confident in his hunch.
The two of them approached the final wooden cabin.
“Hang on,” John said, suddenly. “Look.”
Robert followed his gaze. The door was ajar.
A slow chill fell across his shoulders, and Robert shifted uncomfortably. He could tell the larger man had been freezing for the last few hours, but his pride had prevented him from going back to retrieve a coat from the gift shop. Robert wasn’t one to interrupt a fool in their foolishness. Now, though, he wished on his part he’d thought to bring a weapon. Robert took a slight step back, allowing John the lead. For the first time, Robert felt a flash of gratitude Agent Renee was with him. The tall man had already snapped into a combat posture, his weapon appearing in his hand faster than Robert could blink. John adopted a shooter’s crouch, and he approached, stepping sidelong toward the door, with rapid pace, but also cautious motions.
Robert witnessed, impressed, as the handsome man neared the wooden cabin. John moved quieter, somehow. Before, he had seemed a lumbering giant; now, like a snake moving through tall grass, unnoticed, but deadly. Robert followed along behind, careful where he stepped, careful not to alert anyone who might be inside.
John reached the door and glanced back, just briefly, his weapon trained in front of him, his shoulder pressed against the wooden trim of the doorframe.
Robert mouthed, Caution.
John nodded once and then inhaled and gestured with his head slightly to the side. Robert frowned. John rolled his eyes and gestured again. It took Robert a bit longer than he would ever admit, but at last he realized what the agent wanted, and stepped out of the line of fire from the doorway.
John returned his full attention to the cabin.
The fourth cabin. The final one. Old land, brought by the new resort. Everything else torn down, or built over. Except for these four cabins. What were the odds?
John moved all at once, with the powerful and yet controlled motions of someone who’d breached doors hundreds of times before. His shoulder went first, his foot followed, his posture steadying, his body squaring up behind his weapon, his gun raised into the black at the same time as his body moved through the threshold.
He kept his crouch as the door slammed open. John pulled up short, standing, his chest still in the threshold of the old cabin.
“Do you see anything?” Robert called.
The cabins weren’t large. They didn’t even have bathrooms. Only a scattering of outhouses provided any form of potential relief. “You better come look,” said John, checking the cabin once more and then slowly holstering his weapon.
Robert took this as indication it was safe to
approach. Hesitantly, he stepped up the final two stairs, and then neared the dark threshold of the cabin. Inside, the cabin was dark as well. He stared, and then spotted them.
Bodies. Two of them. It had been hard to tell at first, from the many pieces scattered every which way. Bloodied, but frozen. One of the heads had tumbled into the fireplace. A hand, in a pool of frozen blood, lay just beyond the threshold, a single frostbitten finger curled into the laces of a discarded, ripped shoe.
“I think we found our missing persons,” John murmured.
Robert swallowed, suppressing a sudden urge to vomit. He focused on breathing, his breath fogging the air and trickling up, disappearing into the darkness of the ceiling as he stared at the scene of carnage.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Adele watched as the Sergeant walked across the trail leading from the taxi. Granted, her father was round of belly these days, and he more waddled than walked. He had wide shoulders and arms that suggested he spent a good amount of time in the weight room, despite his age. He had a long, walrus mustache, which he was very proud of, but the hairs on his face seemed to have been contributed by those once on his head. He was balding, a facet of his appearance he wasn’t proud of. Currently, the source of mild embarrassment was covered by a baseball cap beneath an upturned hood.
Adele’s father had a backpack slung over one shoulder, and he wore a tan sweater. She’d texted him earlier to avoid presenting anything that might associate him with the investigation. She knew her father liked wearing his sergeant’s uniform in public. It gave him pride. But now, they needed him to go incognito.
She waited, sitting at the circular table before opening hours of Respite in the Cliffs.
She glanced across the bar toward where the woman from the night before was cleaning the counter and preparing for the early customers.
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