Fatal Descent

by Beth Groundwater

  Mandy opened it and inverted it to dump the contents in the sand. She shone her headlamp on the scattered contents.

  “Hey,” Les shouted. “Don’t get sand all over my camera gear.”

  Alice kicked him again. “You fool. You’ve got a lot more to worry about than your stupid camera and lenses.”

  “Stop kicking me!” Les returned her kick. “That equipment cost thousands of dollars.”

  “And what do you think criminal lawyers cost?”

  That was the first indication that either one of them knew how much trouble they were in. While Diana gasped, Mandy peered at Alice’s face, which bore an expression of worry now, instead of the pure bile that had distorted her features earlier. Maybe Alice’s temper had finally cooled enough that her situation had sunk in. Mandy doubted that they would hear much more from the woman, unfortunately.

  Mandy turned back to the small pile of Les’s gear and pushed around the contents with a stick. She pointed the stick to a preserved bear claw. “There’s the bear claw that scratched Alex.”

  Diana put a hand to her mouth.

  “Good God almighty.” Hal reached out for the claw.

  Mandy stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Don’t touch it. The police will need to test it.”

  After Hal dropped his arm back into his lap, she poked at a small box labeled “disposable hypodermic needles” and a plastic disposable syringe. “Here’re the needles and syringe that were used to sedate both Alex and Amy. And this must be the sedative he used.”

  A small medicine bottle lay in the sand. Mandy rolled it over with the stick to read the label, which contained the words “animal tranquilizer” along with a bunch of words she had never heard of.

  “How’d Les get those?” Hal asked woodenly.

  Mandy glanced at him, worried that the shock might have been

  too much for him and that he might pass out. But when Diana grabbed his hand, and a look of horror passed between them, she realized they were both still struggling to absorb the bombshell that their daughter and son-in-law were killers.

  She bent down to focus her headlamp on the labels on the box and the bottle so she could read the small print. “Looks like a veterinary supply company. Les probably just ordered them over the Internet.”

  “You’re too stupid to live, you know that?” Alice yelled at Les, her face reddening. “Why didn’t you throw that stuff in the river?”

  “Because I thought we might need it again,” Les yelled back.

  Nope, Mandy was wrong. She suppressed a grin. Alice was at it again.

  “Yeah, I need ’em again,” Alice mumbled, “to use on you.” She tugged against her bonds, as if anxious to free her hands and get them on the animal tranquilizer. After a few tries, she blew out a breath, then glared at Les. “At least I don’t have to pretend to love you anymore, you fucking asshole.”

  Les rocked back and gaped at her. “Pretend? You mean—?”

  An evil grin split Alice’s face. “You thought I was going to share that money with you? As soon as I inherited, I was going to drop you like a hot potato. Hot? Ha! More like a cold flabby couch potato.”

  “Hey, I work out!”

  Alice sputtered. “Oh, you’re a piece of work, all right. Your ego is five times the size of your pea brain. A little stroking, and I could get you to do anything.”

  Les’s face fell. “You don’t love me?”

  “Oh, please!” Alice turned away from him.

  Diana had watched the scene with her mouth agape. While tears filled her eyes, she clutched Hal’s arm. “What in the world happened? I can’t believe this is our little Alice.”

  “She’s turned into a scheming, manipulative bitch,” Hal whispered. He stood and walked unsteadily over to his daughter. “How could you stand by while Les killed your brother?”

  “Stand by?” Les snorted. “That’s a laugh. I had nothing to do with Alex’s death. That was all her doing.”

  “Shut up!” Alice yelled.

  Les just gave her a venomous smile and said, “She stuck him with the needle, waited for him to conk out so he couldn’t fight her, then she—”

  Alice rolled toward him, kicking and yelling, “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

  Rob gave Gonzo his gun and ran over to pull Alice off of Les.

  “She clawed him with the bear claw,” Les went on, “then sat there and watched him bleed out. She actually enjoyed it.” Les glared at Hal. “He’d always been your pet, got most of your love and support and the best gifts. Alice actually gloated to me later that the favored son was gone now.”

  Diana had come over and now stood by Hal, trembling and clutching his arm. She looked from Les to Alice in wide-eyed shock, until the dawning realization twisted her features into an anguished grimace. She started sobbing again.

  Mandy bit her lip. She didn’t know what she could do to help them. The terrible realization that one of their children had killed another must be almost too agonizing to bear.

  “You killed your own brother—.” Hal choked up. He and Diana held each other and wept for their dead son while they stared at their daughter—a monster.

  _____

  The next morning, Mandy raised her face to the welcome sunlight breasting the east canyon rim across the river. Shards of white light danced on the water’s surface, blinding her eyes and forcing her to squint. She hoped that the sun’s warmth and the hot cup of coffee she brought to her lips would rouse her tired, aching body into some kind of action. She was almost too exhausted to chew, but she bit into a bagel slathered with peanut butter anyway. She needed the energy the calories would give her.

  The camp was stirring behind her, at least an hour later than their usual morning wake-up call. Rob had forgone the coffee call to let those who had been able to go back to sleep in their tents get some added rest. Mandy hadn’t been one of them. She had tried, thinking she would take a later guard shift. But after lying awake in her sleeping bag for over an hour, she got up and relieved Gonzo as a guard over Alice, Les, and Cool.

  They had wrapped sleeping bags around the three captives but left them outside, so if they said anything to each other, the guards would hear it. Mandy had sat watch with Kendra, periodically waking Cool to check for signs of concussion, until Rob relieved Kendra at six in the morning. He had asked Mandy then if she wanted to grab some sleep, but she shook her head. She wouldn’t be able to rest until she knew Amy had been rescued. Instead, she and Kendra took Alice to the portable toilet under guard, then Kendra woke Gonzo so he and Rob could do the same with Cool, followed by Les.

  Mandy took another sip of coffee while watching the sun’s rays illuminate the canyon walls until they came alive again, glowing in layered shades of pink, white, beige, gray, and red. She took a moment to feel grateful that, although battered, she was alive, and to thank the river gods for bringing them safely to the end of their journey. Then she glanced at Rob’s raft, tied some distance downstream, with Alex’s body bag in the water next to it.

  All safe, but one. And hopefully not two. She glanced upstream and prayed that Amy was also warming herself in the sun while awaiting rescue.

  Then Mandy remembered the odd conversation she’d had with Les and Alice after the toilet break and all three captives were tied up and sitting on the sand again. One unanswered question had been nagging her throughout the night. She had hoped to get the answer out of them before the three were handed over to law enforcement. She had decided to be blunt and hopefully surprise Les into a straight answer.

  “You were the one who cut Elsa’s harness, weren’t you?” she said to him.

  “You obviously think so,” he answered cryptically.

  “Alice had already rappelled down,” Mandy said, “so it wasn’t her, and you two hadn’t recruited Cool to help you yet, so I don’t think it was him, either.”

  “No
way, José,” Cool said vehemently. “You’re damn straight it wasn’t me. And you’d better not try to pin that rap on me!”

  Les just shrugged.

  “Why did you do it?” Mandy studied him with hands on her hips. “What did you have against Elsa? Was it because you knew about her affair with Alex?”

  Alice’s brows went up, and Les chuckled. “Well, what a surprise. Alex was banging his professor.”

  So that wasn’t it, Mandy thought. Then a dawning realization hit her. “You didn’t have any reason to hurt Elsa. That was the whole point. You or Alice must have overheard my conversation with Betsy about the grizzly paw. That rustling I heard in the brush was one of you. You realized your attempt to make it look like a bear had gone after our food on the raft and killed Alex had failed. So, you decided to sabotage Elsa to throw us off track, make us think someone else was trying to kill people for some other reason.”

  Les said nothing.

  Alice kicked him, then peered at Mandy. “I had nothing to do with Elsa’s accident. It was all his idea.”

  “Like hell,” Les yelled. “You agreed. And it almost worked, didn’t it?” Les said to Mandy with a gloating smile. “After that, Paul and Tina were your number one suspects.”

  “As I said,” Alice said smugly. “It was all your idea.”

  “Fuck you!” His face mottled red, Les scooted away from Alice. He clamped his lips tight, and Mandy knew she would get no more out of him.

  She had gone to work laying out a cold bagel and fruit breakfast. After that was done, Mandy had walked to the water’s edge to look and listen for their pickup launch, which was due soon.

  She couldn’t wait to turn over their captives to the authorities and to end her responsibility for the other clients, too. Her whole body craved relief from the tension that was the only thing keeping her on her feet now. She wanted nothing more than to climb into a warm bed and to fall into a worry-free deep sleep.

  Not yet, though, not yet. We aren’t out of the canyon.

  The three women friends came up to stand with her and watch the sun rise over the rim. They silently picked grapes off a cluster that Mo had brought with her and chewed on their bagels. Then Viv put an arm around Mandy’s shoulders, glanced at Betsy and Mo, and cleared her throat.

  “We all just wanted to let you know how much we admire you, Rob, Kendra, and Gonzo, and how grateful we are that you kept us safe. You risked your lives for us.”

  Mandy blushed. “Thanks. Paul helped, too, though, and I feel bad that he got injured.”

  Mo stepped forward. “We’ll thank him, too. I’m sure Les, Alice, and Cool would have killed us all if they’d gotten the chance. We were all witnesses, and they had the weapons to do it.”

  “Especially me,” Betsy added. “I’ve been thinking. I’m sure that one of them must have heard me tell you about the grizzly prints when we went to fetch the toilet that day. Remember the noise in the willows that we thought was a squirrel? I bet it was Les or

  Alice.”

  Mandy nodded. “It was. That’s when Les and Alice realized their ploy to make Alex’s death look like an accident wasn’t going to work. And that’s why Les cut Elsa’s harness.”

  All three women stared at Mandy.

  “That wasn’t an accident either?” Mo asked.

  “No,” Mandy said, “but we didn’t tell anyone her harness had been cut, because we didn’t want everyone to panic.”

  “Then Les tried to kill you.” Betsy’s eyes went wide and she wagged a finger at Mandy. “Because you knew about the fake paw—and the harness being cut. I’m sure I would have been next.”

  Mandy couldn’t disagree with that, but before she could say anything, Betsy gave her a fierce hug. “Thank you. For everything.”

  The distant roar of an outboard motor echoed off the canyon walls.

  Mo looked eager. “Is that what I think it is?”

  Mandy shielded her eyes from the sun’s glare and peered downriver. A motor launch appeared from around the bend, dwarfed by the towering striated cliffs hemming in the river. The boat headed toward them, and Mandy waved at it.

  “Yes, that’s our pickup,” she said. “Hopefully he’s got a radio.”

  And hopefully Amy had survived the night.

  eighteen

  And this, our life, exempt from public haunt,

  finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

  sermons in stones, and good in everything.

  —william shakespeare

  With hope and relief lifting her spirits, Mandy sent Betsy, Mo, and Viv to alert the others that the motor launch had arrived. The tanned, wiry boatman nudged the bow to shore. While exchanging howdies, Mandy took the anchor he handed to her and seated it firmly in the sand. Then she climbed aboard and said, “I need your radio.”

  With a question in his gaze, he handed it to her. She contacted the Canyonlands Park Service dispatcher, reported that an injured client needed rescue, and gave directions on where to find Amy. “Please radio back as soon as you find her,” Mandy said. “I’m worried about her.”

  “Why didn’t you take her with you?” the boatman asked.

  “That’s a long story,” Mandy replied. “A very long story.” Then she told the dispatcher that they had a body in a body bag and three captives to turn over who had committed murder and attempted murder.

  “What?” both the boatman and radio dispatcher exclaimed.

  Mandy summarized the events quickly for the dispatcher while the boatman looked on, gape-mouthed and periodically shaking his head in disbelief.

  The dispatcher said, “Hold on.” After a few moments, she came back on and said, “We’re sending a helicopter down the canyon. They’ll locate your injured client and relay the GPS coordinates back to us so we can send a boat to rescue her. Then they’ll drop a ranger at your campsite to arrest your captives and secure them. He’ll take over custody.”

  “Good,” Mandy said. “I’m more than ready to get them off my hands.”

  “They’ll have to ride to Hite Marina with you, though,” the dispatcher said. “We don’t have room in the helicopter for all four of them. State police will meet you there.”

  The boatman took the radio and spoke into it. “I’m more than a little wigged out about having killers on board.”

  “That’s why we’re sending an armed ranger,” the dispatcher said, then added with admiration in her voice, “Plus it sounds like Miss Tanner and her crew have things under control and can lend a hand if the ranger needs it.”

  After signing off, the boatman turned to Mandy. “Damn! You’ve had more excitement on this trip than a spring run at flood stage.”

  “I’d much rather have that kind of excitement,” Mandy replied. “Fighting for our lives against the river gods would’ve been a lot less scary than battling armed human killers.”

  The boatman nodded somberly. As the clients arrived with armloads of gear to be stowed in the rafts, he said, “Let’s get this flotilla roped up. Hopefully the chopper will arrive by the time we’re done, and I can get you back to the marina as fast as possible. I’ll have the willies until those crooks are off my boat.”

  It took about an hour to fill the rafts with gear and link them in a chain behind the motor launch. By mid-morning, they were ready to go. The helicopter landed at about the same time, and a National Park Service ranger hopped off with a bag of gear.

  Mandy hurried over. “Did you spot the injured woman?”

  “Yes,” he replied, “though she didn’t make any movements when we flew over.”

  Mandy’s knees went wobbly. “Uh-oh. I can’t believe she didn’t hear the helicopter. I hope that doesn’t mean she’s too weak to move or unconscious.” Or dead from exposure and her injury.

  The ranger’s expression was sympathetic. “We were pretty high. If she was sleeping, she may
not have heard us.”

  “How long will it take to get a boat to her?”

  “One of our rangers came down the Green River in a motor launch yesterday and spent the night at the Confluence. Dispatch is sending him to pick up your client, so it shouldn’t take too long. Now, where are your captives? I’ve got handcuffs and ankle cuffs in here.” He hefted his gear bag. “I’ll feel much better once I get them properly restrained.”

  “Me, too,” Mandy said. She motioned the ranger to follow her as she started walking toward the campsite. “And I’ll feel much better when you take charge of them.”

  She took him to where Rob and Gonzo stood over the captives, who sat in the sand and glowered in the sun, since there was no shade on the beach. Mandy pointed to each one. “Alice Anderson, Les Williams, and Tom O’Day, who likes to be called Cool.”

  Cool winced. Obviously, he wasn’t feeling very cool that day.

  The ranger read the three of them their rights. Then he had Mandy and Gonzo replace their rope and duct tape constraints with the ones he brought while he and Rob stood guard.

  Mandy breathed a sigh of relief when the ranger confiscated Les’s two handguns from Rob and put them in an evidence bag. Though she had some law enforcement training as a seasonal river ranger, weapons training hadn’t been included. This guy was an armed career officer, and his no-nonsense approach showed he knew how to manage the situation.

  The ranger watched over them with his gun raised while the guides lifted Alice, Les, and Cool to their feet, helped them duck-walk in their ankle restraints to the water line, then assisted them into the motor launch. Then Mandy got into the first raft in the chain behind the launch, which held Diana and Hal. She gave them the news about Amy.

  “She didn’t move? Oh my God,” Diana cried, her anxiety evident in the way she tightly clutched Hal’s hand.

  “She could have just been sleeping,” Mandy said. “It doesn’t mean anything bad.” Mandy mentally crossed her fingers. “We’ll know how she is as soon as the ranger gets to her.”