BLOOD RIVER (A Trask Brothers Murder Mystery)

by C. E. Nelson

  “This rain makes me need to pee,” shouted Anderson as he stood abruptly. “I’ll be right back,” he stated loudly to be heard over the storm.

  The Sentry held his knife to the side of his leg as he turned to watch the man enter the bathroom behind them, flipping the door closed. Lightening flashed through the window to their left as he turned back to Robinson who was just setting his beer back on the table. As the rumble of thunder began to build from the west, the Sentry could feel the power of the ancients surge through him, their voices reaching a crescendo between his ears. He grabbed the hair just above Robinson’s forehead and jerked it back. A sound something like the yip of a small poodle came from Robinson’s throat, his eyes now wide open, but likely never seeing the blade pass in front of his throat.

  The low-backed chrome frame chair in which Robinson was sitting had a leg in back that was bent forward which, along with the force that the Sentry had pulled Robinson’s head back, caused the chair and Robinson to tip backwards towards him. He pushed his left thigh forward which slowed the tip of the chair and Robinson long enough for him to slice through the thyroid gland and trachea before severing the artery, but the chair and body continued to fall to floor right of the Sentry as he released his grip. This turned out to be an advantage for the killer in two ways. First, the body turned away from him and with it the spray of blood coming from the neck, leaving the Sentry with no blood on him at all. Secondly, when Anderson exited the bathroom moments later his attention was drawn to the body of his partner on the floor to his right, allowing the Sentry to slip behind Anderson and slice his throat too.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It took him a few moments to realize that the pounding at his front door was not the thunder that had kept him awake much of the night. He stretched to turn on the light on his bedside table, looking at the clock as he did. He groaned as he forced himself from bed before pulling on the robe that hung on the rack next to his bedroom door. Dave shuffled to the head of the stairs, staring down through the darkness at his front door before turning on the lights. The heavy clouds that were still supplying a steady stream of rain on the windows had delayed the arrival daylight. Dave hesitated before opening the door at the site of a dark figure on his porch until Danny pushed his face against the window that ran vertically along his front door.

  “Hang your jacket on the nail outside, put your boots in the tray by the door, and follow me to the kitchen. I’ll make coffee.”

  Danny did as ordered, sitting at the island counter watching the sheriff make coffee by the sink. He wasn’t sure if he should say anything, so he waited quietly until the sheriff sat down and pushed a cup across the counter to him. They both sipped the coffee in silence.

  “So what brings you out here again?” asked Trask as he looked over at his deputy. “Now that I’m officially sworn in did you feel the need to wake me up for duty?”

  Looking at the unshaven tired face before him the deputy could not tell if his new boss was serious or not. “Um, no sir. I just got a call from Brad Owens. He runs Half Moon Resort out on Bay Lake. He says he’s got two dead guests in their cabin.”

  Dave stared at his deputy but did not see him. A small sip of coffee hit his stomach like acid and he closed his eyes, cringing at the pain.

  “Um, you OK sheriff?”

  Dave opened his eyes as he let out a deep breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “Finish your coffee. You can tell me about it on the way. I’ll be ready in five.”

  Half Moon was one of the older resorts in the area. The cabins were advertised as ‘rustic’ and they lived up to the billing. Most had slanted wood floors, doors that didn’t quite shut, and roofs that let the rain in whenever there was any kind of a breeze. There were eight red cedar-sided cabins that held anywhere from two to eight guests each. The current owner had purchased the property two years ago and was making an effort to upgrade the resort, starting with a new main lodge that was almost complete.

  Access to the resort was by an old logging road that was not fun to drive, especially so after or during a rain, when the large ruts and potholes hid like landmines waiting to destroy your rims or break an axel. The road also provided the only access to the lake meaning the fishing pressure was minimal and the fishing excellent if you could get there. For some reason the owner neglected to mention the road when he recruited new guests. This would be Dave’s first visit to the camp.

  The deputy’s tan county truck looked like the loser in a giant mud-wrestling contest by the time it pulled into the resort’s gravel lot and stopped in front of the main lodge. The windshield wipers hurried back and forth in front of them as the deputy and sheriff peered out at half a dozen men in rain gear that stood on the porch, oddly dressed pallbearers waiting for a funeral. Among them was the owner, Brad Owens, a big man, four inches over six feet, with a frame that said he had played football at some time in the past. Now in his early fifties, his brown hair was showing signs of grey, but was still as thick as when he was younger.

  He had been a guest at the camp for several years before purchasing it from the prior owner and like many guests that became owners, he underestimated the amount of work necessary just to keep a camp operational and greatly overestimated the amount of free time he would have to fish. Still, Owens was a good businessman, and had done his homework before making an offer. He knew bookings were solid, the fishing good, and felt that with renovation and better access, he could increase those numbers and the prices he could charge. Those estimates had been based on the assumption that he would be able to do much of the work himself, something he found there was also little time for when the guests were present.

  “Morning Danny.”

  “Morning Brad. This is sheriff Trask,” Meline replied as he nodded towards the sheriff. Dave shook hands with the camp owner and they were ushered inside.

  “Why don’t you come into my office? I’ve got some coffee there,” said the owner as he pulled back the hood on his rain jacket.

  The office turned out to be a small room off the kitchen where shelves of pine planks supported by two by six inch studs contained an assortment of supplies for the camp. The room smelled of fresh-cut lumber. The lodge felt cool but sticky; the air conditioning was not keeping up with the humidity. A dark blue plastic coffee carafe and four cups sat in the middle of a table constructed from a scrap of plywood. Owens poured and handed cups to Danny and Dave before filling a cup for himself. It was apparent he was shaken and unsure where to start.

  “Why don’t you tell us what you know Mr. Owens?” led Dave.

  “OK. Well it was at breakfast this morning that I noticed that two of the guests weren’t here.”

  “Here being?”

  “The main lodge. It’s where we serve all the meals, except for shore lunch of course. This is an American plan camp so the guests get all their meals included. I didn’t think much about it, some of the guests party a little hard at night and sometimes they just skip breakfast.”

  “Did these two men party last night?” asked Dave.

  “If they did, it was in their cabin because they were in the lodge watching a movie until close to midnight, and they were just sipping beers. Same thing they did the first three nights. Anyway, their guide popped in after breakfast and asked for a weather update. I told him it looked to be a couple of hours before they could head out and then he asked if I’d seen his guests.”

  “What’s the guide’s name?”

  “Darrell Nelson.”

  “We’ll need to speak to him later,” replied Dave as he made a note of the guide’s name. “We’ll also need a list of all of your guides. Go on,” encouraged the sheriff.

  “Sure. Well, I looked out the front door and it didn’t look like they’d touched their coffee. We put a tray with hot coffee outside the door of each cabin every morning at six and knock on the door to let them know it’s there. I put on my jacket and walked over. I picked up the carafe and it was still full so I knocked on the door. There wa
sn’t any answer so I knocked real loud again. They still didn’t say anything so I opened the door and poked my head in. That’s as far as I got.” Owens lifted his cup to his lips with both hands, trying to get it to his mouth without spilling, shaking like he had a chill.

  “You didn’t go in?” questioned Dave.

  “There wasn’t any need. It’s only a three-room cabin. There’s a main room with a small table and a couple of chairs as you enter. The bathroom is off to the left and the bedroom straight ahead. One of them is lying on the floor by the table and the other in the doorway to the bathroom. There’s blood everywhere.”

  The owner was obviously in shock but Dave had to ask the question. “Didn’t you check to see if they were alive?”

  “There wasn’t any way they were still alive sheriff. Their heads were just about all the way off,” he replied, his voice cracking.

  The sheriff and deputy looked at the camp owner as he leaned on the table looking into his cup, his hands gripping the cup so hard Dave thought it might crack. It didn’t matter how many horror movies you saw, seeing a grizzly scene like the one he described was hard for even a homicide cop to take. There was maybe more he had to tell but it was apparent it wasn’t coming out now.

  “What can you tell us about the men?”

  “They were new to the camp this year. Both of them signed up at the Minneapolis Sport Show last winter. The man with the black hair is Dan Robinson. I’m pretty sure he was from Minneapolis. The others name is Dave Anderson. I think he was from Minneapolis too. Let me check his card.”

  Brad turned and pulled out two 3” by 5” cards from a yellow plastic box that sat next to a computer on the counter behind him. Dave remembered his mom had a box just like it where she kept her recipes. He used to love helping his mom cook, especially when she made his favorite chocolate chip cookies on cold winter weekends, which seemed to be most of the year in Minnesota. His dad would pop a beer as soon as the cookies were out of the oven, claiming there was nothing better than beer and warm cookies. Of course he said that about just about anything he ate with beer. The recipe box was lost in the fire – the chocolate chip recipe gone forever.

  “Yeah, he was from Burnsville, that’s south of Minneapolis,” he said as he looked up at the sheriff. “I got their emergency contact information here. Are you going to call?” It was as close to a plea for help as he could make.

  Danny assured Brad that they would be calling soon as he reached to take the cards from him. Brad pulled them back.

  “Let me get you a printout. I’ve got all the information from the cards on my computer.”

  Meline looked to Trask as the camp owner quickly returned the cards to his file. He didn’t want them to see those cards for some reason.

  “What’s going to happen now? I mean, I got a camp full of guests. This is my business. Am I going to have to shut down?” asked Owens as he looked from Dave to Danny.

  “We’re going to have to tape off the cabin where the men are but, other than that, you should be able to carry on as usual,” answered Trask, knowing he should have worded his reply differently as soon as the words left his mouth.

  “Carry on as usual?” he responded in a defiant tone. “Sheriff, I’m in debt up to my eyeballs and these guests are the only chance I got at staying afloat. You think that they’re going to want to hang around here with a killer on the loose? I’ve already had half of them ask for refunds, and I’m just waiting for the others to follow suit. If word gets out about this my phone is going to be ringing off the hook with cancellations, and if that happens I’m toast. You got to catch this guy now!” he said pointing his finger at Dave.

  “We’re working around the clock on it Brad,” Meline cut in as he put a hand on the owner’s shoulder, “and the sheriff’s got the BCA in on it too. We’ll catch him.”

  “Sorry. This is just more than I can handle,” the camp owner said in apology as he shook his head back and forth. There was no hope in his bloodshot eyes.

  The three men walked back out to the porch and Owens pointed at the cabin about forty yards to the east. It was obvious he was not eager to return to the cabin so Danny and Dave pulled up the hoods on their rain jackets and left him on the porch after reminding him of the printout and also again requesting information on all of the guides. The guests had all retreated to their cabins and now stood on the porches and in the doorways watching the officers’ progress as they crossed the muddy gravel clearing.

  Dave reached to wipe the rain off his nose as they stopped in front of the cabin. The plastic tray with the carafe of coffee and two overturned cups sat on the floor to the right of the door. Sandy prints were visible on the porch leading to the door and then away again, but only one set in each direction. Dave guessed it was likely the wind and rain had washed any others away.

  “Take a walk around the cabin and see if you see any other signs of entry then hang back until I come out. I like to go over a scene like this by myself first,” he said as he stepped up on the porch and slipped covers over his boots and put on gloves. Danny’s expression said he wasn’t happy, but Dave did not yet trust the deputy with a crime scene, especially one like this.

  He pulled open the screen door and then pushed open the interior door that hadn’t been completely shut. The smell of death hit him like a steel curtain, stopping him in his tracks, the screen door trying to push him in from behind. The air was oppressive and closed in on Dave, the sweat immediately forming on his forehead, his lungs choked for air. He backed out in a hurry, his eyes watering, trying to catch his breath bent over with his hands on his knees. The screen door slammed announcing his departure.

  He stood up and looked at the lake, hands now on his hips, continuing to take deep breaths. The wind had finally let up and only intermittent raindrops dimpled the lake surface. Men on the porch of the other cabins stared as Dave wiped the sweat from his face. “Don’t I look like a big sissy,” he muttered as he turned back to the door. He took a deep breath before re-entering, holding his breath as he moved directly to the window on the west wall, which he was thrilled to see opened easily and stayed open, before again making his exit. Danny stood next to the porch.

  “You done already sheriff?”

  Dave shook his head. “Not quite. Go see if the owner can scare up a fan and an extension cord. Yell at me when you get back, I’ll be inside.”

  Dave watched the deputy walk away before turning to reenter the cabin. What he surveyed inside was essentially as described by the owner and it was easy to see why Owens was so shaken. The cabin was a slaughterhouse. It appeared to Dave that the man by the table, Dan Robinson, was likely killed first and then the man who must have been in the bathroom. Robinson was fully clothed and lay on his back with an overturned chair to his side. Blood had pooled under his head and then run in a smooth dark stream under the table. The man partially in the bathroom was facedown in jeans with no shirt or socks. The blood from his neck flowed towards the same low area in the floor below the table like two streams were trying to join to form a river, a river of blood. There appeared to be a large bloodstain on the back of his left leg. If it would be any consolation to relatives, he was sure the men had died quickly.

  Trask looked back and forth between the bodies. Neither had experienced the viciousness or apparent retribution inflicted on the body by the cliff drawings on the island. What had that man done to set the killer off?

  Dave moved carefully into the cabin to avoid the blood and any tracks from the mud and sand. A few feet in he stopped and surveyed the floor. The floor consisted of eight-inch planking that had been painted gray, probably in the spring, as the only worn areas seemed to be where the chairs had left marks. What struck him as odd was that there did not seem to be any muddy prints on the floor. Dave bent to look under the table at Robinson and could see he was in stocking feet; Anderson was barefoot. Dave looked back to the door to see a boot tray sitting next to it with a pair of tennis shoes and a pair of sandals inside. He walked
back to the tray and bent to look closely at the shoes. There was mud across the top of the tennis shoes. So the killer had taken off his shoes when he came in? How was that even possible?

  What also seemed almost inconceivable was that the killer could have avoided all of the blood, but there were no tracks with blood or blood smears on any of the surfaces that Dave could see as he stood. He made his way to the bedroom where clothes were scattered on the floor and two tackle boxes had their contents emptied on the beds. Several rods and reels stood untouched in the corner. Dave picked them up to see that there were Calcutta reels and G.Loomis rods – well over five hundred dollars for each.

  On a nightstand by one of the beds lay a brown leather wallet. Dave opened it to see the driver’s license for David Anderson. He had just turned fifty. Pictures inside showed a much younger David Anderson and what Dave assumed was his wife and two blonde daughters. Spaces where credit cards had been were empty as was the pocket that would have held any cash.

  The sheriff stood for a moment in the bedroom door and surveyed the scene. Had the men let the killer in? It seemed the only possibility but why had they done that? Could they have known him? Had the killer targeted these men in particular and what was their relation to the men killed on the island? Robbery was a possible motive but why leave behind fishing equipment easily worth thousands?

  Dave was lost in thought when he heard the knock on the door. “Sheriff? You O.K. in there?” said Danny through the screen. “I got the fan.”

  “I’m fine. Be out in a minute.” The sheriff took one last look around before joining the deputy on the porch. The rain was lighter now but still dripping off the porch roof as Dave stepped outside, taking a deep breath as he tried to rid his body of the evil from inside. He looked out at the lake now becoming visible as the sun moved higher behind the clouds. With the passing of the front the fishing would slow and the sun would turn the day into a sauna. And now he had four murders on his hands. “Grab your camera and get photos of everything. I want close-ups of the bodies and each room. I don’t need to tell you to be careful where you step, be sure you cover your shoes. Also, be sure to get close-ups of the boot tray inside the door but do not touch the shoes. I’ll call the ME.” Dave slapped a mosquito that bit him on the cheek. “Damn mosquitoes. Don’t they know it’s raining?”