“What?” her father demanded. He shifted a bit, his feet tapping against the heated tiles of the technologically advanced resort pathway.
Another group of tourists moved from a café, past a restaurant, up a spiraling staircase toward a viewing platform with an impressive glass and steel observatory at the top.
“Nothing,” Adele said, “well, something. The latest victim…I’m not sure I should be telling you this, but the latest victim also had a skiing accident.”
“You’re sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Well, we need to look into it then, yes? I mean, you do. Obviously I’m not a part of this.”
Adele cleared her throat uncomfortably. Her father was right, in a way. He wasn’t a part of it. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to bring him back in. Not after the way things ended. Then again, he was the one who brought the lead.
“Honestly, if you want to come with me, fine. It’s not going to be a pleasant meeting anyway.”
Her father raised a bushy eyebrow.
“If what you’re saying is right,” she said, “the Haneses were involved in an accident in France. Here, in Germany, Mr. Griezmann experienced an accident as well, and I’ll have to find out which resort. But that also means the Benevetis are the ones we need to look into. See if they had a connection.”
“Why the long face?”
“Means I’m probably going to have to speak with the manager.” Adele felt even colder all of a sudden, and pulled her jacket tight around her, shoving her hands deep in her pockets and glaring grumpily past her father now. “He wasn’t too pleased last time he found me snooping. And with the way things have gone recently,” she said, “not sure he’s going to be super pleased with seeing me now.”
“He’ll treat you respectfully,” her father said.
Adele smiled. “I’d like to hope so.”
“No,” said the Sergeant. “He will treat you respectfully.”
Then her father turned and began marching in the direction of the parking lot where she’d parked her government issue. For a moment, she just stared after him, but then, with a small smile twisting the corners of her lips, she moved after her father. The idea of confronting the manager about the Benevetis didn’t sit well at all. But perhaps her father had accidentally stumbled on the next lead. The only remaining lead.
***
The drive with her father back to the Bavarian resort was an undertaking in tentative silence. Neither Adele nor her father made much of an effort to speak. But at the same time, it was nothing in comparison to the silence that fell over the room when Adele pushed open the expensive wooden door and stepped onto the Turkish rug of the office for Mr. Adderman, the manager of the Bavarian resort.
For a moment, Adele paused, clearing her throat and staring out across the long office space.
Her eyes darted across a couple of bookshelves with decorative covers that seemed more for show than reading. Her eyes glazed over a small minibar in the back of the room, and an oak table, with an ashtray for cigar butts.
A large desk sat beneath what looked like a sparse chandelier in the ceiling. And behind the oversized desk sat Mr. Adderman.
The small, red-faced man looked up from a computer and stared across the room at Adele.
She recognized him from their interaction in Respite in the Cliffs. At the time, he’d been yelling at her. Now, his confusion was quickly being replaced by another surge of anger as he stared.
“You?” he said.
Adele nodded in greeting
“I’m sorry, Mr. Adderman!” called the voice of the assistant manager from the hallway. The woman had led them to the manager’s office, but had also informed them he was indisposed. Adele hadn’t cared.
The manager got to his feet, as if to look over Adele’s shoulder, but she quickly reached out, grabbed the handle, and closed the door shut behind her as her father also stepped into the room.
“What do you want?” the resort manager demanded. “As if you haven’t done enough already!”
“Please,” Adele interrupted, “I’m here for some information, to help put this investigation to bed. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
The manager looked like he was about to bust a gasket. His cheeks continued to redden, and his eyes were bulging again as they had back in the bar when he’d first confronted her.
“See,” she said, quickly, cutting him off before he could speak again. “I’m not talking to your employees. This time, I’m coming straight to you. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
The manager drew a long breath, as if trying to calm his nerves. “What I want,” he said, growling, “is for you to get out of here and stop meddling. You don’t even understand what you’re costing this place.”
Adele clicked her tongue. “I did not murder those five victims. I’m here to help prevent any more deaths. Don’t blame me for the killer’s doings.”
For a moment, she thought he might throw the ashtray at her. He stepped around the table, though and passed his desk, glaring and shaking his head so wildly, his round cheeks trembled. “You need to get out of here,” he snapped. “You don’t have a warrant. No, don’t pretend. If you did, you would’ve led with it. Get out.”
He approached Adele, finger raised, jabbing toward her. He only got within a couple of feet, though, before Adele’s father sidled forward, stepping between his daughter and the charging resort manager.
For a moment, Adele bristled, annoyed. She didn’t need the Sergeant fighting her battles for her. But then she saw the look on the manager’s face.
He pulled up short, staring, his jaw half unhinged. “And who are you?” he demanded.
“You’ll speak kindly to Adele, understand?” her father said, his voice a low growl.
Adele felt a slight tremble up the back of her spine. She had heard her father speak in this tone before. It never boded well.
The manager, for his part, spluttered and took a step back, as if unsure. He glared at Adele’s father. “Get out, both of you!”
But her father crossed his arms. “No,” he said. “You want this to end? You want your business to go back to how it was as usual? You should listen to her,” he said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder.
“It’s all right,” Adele said, quietly, but her father ignored her.
“She’s one of the best damn investigators they have. But idiots like you keep getting in the way, preventing her from doing her job. You want this to be drawn out, months on end, given over to the locals? You want to know how I know they’ll take their sweet time about it? Because I’m one of them. Once this goes to the locals, it’ll be shunted around from office to office. Homicide won’t want it. No one’s gonna want it. This is a tainted case. They might even have to shut down your resort. In fact, I’ll tell you right now, I know a few that will push for it. The unions won’t like it, but some of the environmentalists, they have a big sway downtown nowadays. Not sure if you heard.”
The manager tried to speak, but Adele’s father held out a finger and made a shushing sound, so precise and stern that the smaller man fell quiet, staring up at Adele’s father.
“But she,” he jerked another thumb toward his daughter, “has worked with DGSI, the FBI, and now is on an assigned taskforce with Interpol. Understand? She has ties with BKA, and any other intelligence agency you might think of. And all of that in her thirties. She’s one of the best you’ve ever seen. And you’re too stupid to get your head out of your ass, and help her solve this case so you can get things back to normal.”
Adele stared at the back of her father’s head, stunned. For one, she had never heard him swear before. For another, she had never heard him talk about her like that.
She swallowed, feeling a lump in her throat all of a sudden. Just as quickly she cleared her throat and it was gone. The manager, though, on the receiving end of this tirade, had a different reaction. At first, he looked like he wanted to shout for security. But then he seemed to see som
ething in Mr. Sharp’s face he didn’t like. The Sergeant loomed over the smaller man, not backing down.
The manager glanced between the two of them, then huffed a breath, not quite in defeat, but an impatient, compliant sound, suggesting he would at least hear them. “What do you need? Make it quick.”
It was only then that Adele’s father stepped aside, glancing back at her and raising his eyebrow, one side of his face tilted away from the manager and quirked in a half smile.
Adele suppressed her own grin and said, in an even tone, “We’re looking for records on skiing accidents at your resort.”
“The paramedics deal with—” the manager began.
“Yes, they would have records. But you would too. A place this high-end? There’s no way you don’t. Liability would be your worst nightmare.”
The manager shook his head. “Okay, what specifically? It’s not like I personally go through records.”
“No, but you have the number of the guy who does. All I need to know is if the Benevetis also had a skiing accident recently.”
“And then you leave?”
Adele crossed a finger over her heart in mock sincerity.
“Fine, stay there; don’t touch anything.” With the same annoyed energy as before, he moved back to his desk.
Adele waited, patient but excited.
He yammered on the phone for a bit, more eye rolling and huffing breaths, more reddened cheeks, suggesting if he wasn’t more careful, he’d be dealing with cardiac issues more frequently than BKA agents.
At last, though, he looked up and stared across the oak table. “I’ll have you know, it was only a very minor incident,” he said.
Adele perked up, refusing the urge to look at her father in giddy, schoolgirl excitement. “Wait, so there was an accident?”
The manager passed a hand over his sweaty face. “The Benevetis were repeat visitors to our establishment. Trusted visitors. They had their own chalet. A couple years ago, yes, they were in a small accident that required ski paramedics. It’s a shared resource all the resorts use. It’s outside my influence,” he quickly added.” If there’s some complaint—”
“No complaint. Just investigating. So these are like EMTs or firefighters?” Adele said. “They’re a shared resource between the resorts, you say? How many resorts?”
He looked annoyed again, and began to gesture toward the door. But Adele’s father growled slightly, and Mr. Adderman seemed to catch himself and said, “About a two-hundred-mile radius or so. I don’t know exactly. They cover a lot of resorts. They’re not tied to any particular country’s jurisdiction. They just operate in the mountains. Is that all you need? You said you would leave.”
“Last question, then I promise I’m gone,” said Adele.
“What?”
“These mountain paramedics, where, exactly, can I find them?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Nein. No records,” said the man behind the desk. He didn’t look even look up. His Coke bottle glasses amplified his eyes to comical proportions. Except there was anything but a smile on Adele’s lips as she stared at the dispatcher.
Adele felt her father shift next to her. “Check again! Bitte!” she insisted. Adele felt like she could scream. They were standing in the ski paramedic depot which the Bavarian resort relied on. This same paramedic depot had various outposts throughout the Alps. Adele wasn’t too sure of the mechanisms. She’d never had run-ins with ski paramedics before. Now, she hoped she never would have to again.
The office building was a gray stone structure that at first she’d taken for an electrical tower in the distance. A mesh wire gate surrounded the thing, and inside, it was nearly as cold as it had been outside. The man, for his part, had been wearing earmuffs when they’d first arrived. Getting his attention had been an endeavor in patience.
“How can there be no records?” Adele demanded. “Surely you have to have something on file? You service the three resorts I’ve mentioned, yes?”
The man sighed and look up at her. There was no one else in the office. It was a lonely, colorless setting.
The man nodded. “We service resorts in a couple-hundred-mile radius,” he said, proudly, his chest puffing out a bit. The man had a whiskery face, but a very patchy beard. He had longish hair tied back in a ponytail, and a bandanna wrapped around his neck.
The man reached up and adjusted his glasses for the first time, causing his eyes to look even wider and more googly behind the frames. “I mean,” he said, “we don’t keep track of minor injuries. I just work in the office. I don’t actually go out on the expeditions. But the rescue teams, like I said, we service hundreds of miles all up and down the slopes. Most of the resorts have contracts with us. We couldn’t possibly keep track of everything. Minor injuries are logged for the purposes of payment, but nothing else is kept.”
Adele pointed at him. “So you’re saying you do have something on the Benevetis?”
He shrugged. “Two years ago; hiking accident. But that’s it—none of the records are filled in.”
Adele wanted to scream. “And the Haneses?”
He nodded. “Also in the system. And, before you ask, yes, Mr. Griezmann, he’s also here. His was a nasty ski accident, though.”
Adele felt like pulling hair. “Who went?”
“We send teams of four in cases like this; when they’re serious.”
“So you have four names?”
He nodded once and rattled them off without hesitation. “Jacob Marks, Stephanie Gretz, Jeremy Asbury, and Corey Bjerg.”
She gritted her teeth. Four names was too many. Nothing about the MO suggested the killer worked with someone. One of those names had to be involved, though, didn’t they? But how could they narrow it down?
“And the paramedics who went for the Benevetis and the Haneses, they would have been on their own, yes? Since it wasn’t as serious.”
The office worker nodded. “Possibly. For the more mild injuries, we only send one or two rescue workers. But, like I said, we don’t have that record. All we know is the name of the injured party, and a couple more descriptions of the issue. We don’t have records of who went to treat whom.”
Adele bit her lip. “But you do for Mr. Griezmann!”
“Yes. Because his was serious. But not for the others.” He crossed his arms. But then, after a second, he snapped his fingers. “Hang on,” he said, pushing up from his chair and moving across the cold, concrete room. He reached a floor to ceiling file cabinet, then muttered beneath his breath.
“What is it?” Adele demanded.
“Hang on!” he said, still rooting around. At last, though, he snapped his fingers and crowed, “A-ha!”
He pulled a paper file from the top drawer and wiggled it beneath his nose. He rounded on them and strode over to Adele, smiling as he did.
“What is that?” she said, staring.
“Overtime forms,” he replied. “Have to file manually—all the employees do. And this,” he wiggled the form again, “was from the man who went after the Benevetis, nearly two years ago. It isn’t in our files, but if he’s claiming overtime, chances are, he took the call.”
Adele stared. “You’re saying whoever filed for overtime was the same person who helped the Benevetis?”
“Yes.”
“Well?” she demanded. “Who was it?”
He pushed the file toward her, and Adele opened it, scanning the information. Only a few relevant details stood out. The date, indeed, was from more than eighteen months ago, on another excursion the Benevetis had taken in the mountains. The required pay was on a line below that. And then, below that, there was a printed name.
“What were those four names again?” Adele demanded, glancing toward the dispatcher. “The ones who helped Mr. Griezmann after his ski accident.”
Without missing a beat, the operator rattled off, “Jacob Marks, Stephanie Gretz, Jeremy Asbury, and Corey Bjerg.”
Adele stared at the paper overtime form. At the bottom o
f the page, printed, next to a signature, were two simple words—only two. A tenuous connection. Nothing certain… She was reaching for straws and she knew it… But a connection all the same.
Adele’s heart skipped a beat. She lowered the file, handing it back to the paramedic dispatch with a shaking hand.
“Well?” her father asked.
The paramedic stared at her as well.
Adele cleared her throat, and with a daunting sense of urgency, she said, “Corey Bjerg. Where is he, right now?”
The dispatcher blinked a couple of times, but then returned to his computer, clacking away. After a moment, he looked up. For the first time, a hint of an emotion crossed his countenance, and he cleared his throat. “He’s out on a rescue mission right now, actually. I can tell him to call you when he gets back…”
But Adele was already shaking her head. “No, that’s not going to do. Where is he? We need to get to him, this instant.”
“I’m not sure I can—”
“Tell me where he is right now or I’ll have you arrested for aiding a murderer,” she shouted.
The operator winced, but then, in an even tone, seemingly deciding on the spot, he said, “I can text you the coordinates to the number you contacted me with, if you’d like. But that’s the best I can do. I can’t tell you where Mr. Bjerg is, since he’s en route, but I can tell you where the wounded party is located. It’s a twenty-kilometer hike from here. You don’t have skis, do you?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Adele,” her father said. Adele glanced back at her dad. “Your friend—the loud French one—he can fly us, yes?”
Adele nodded quickly, already dialing John’s number. She turned now, starting out of the dispatch center with quick, hurried steps.
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