Antler Dust (The Allison Coil Mystery Series Book 1)

by Mark Stevens

  “Ransacked,” said Gerard. “Nothing stolen.”

  “Unusual,” said Sandstrom.

  “There is something else. Someone missing,” said Allison.

  “Who?”

  “A guide named Rocky Carnivitas. Works for George Grumley. He hasn’t been seen since before the snowstorm. You need to know.”

  “And why do we need to know?”

  “It’s part of this situation.”

  “And you’re sure he’s missing?”

  “Nobody has seen him.”

  “Which means he could be out on a trip and out of communication range, correct?”

  “Possible. Unlikely.”

  One of the deputies shifted a toothpick back and forth in his mouth and offered a squinting grimace.

  Allison was tempted to tell Sandstrom about the GPS collar and the brochure in Rocky’s trailer, to add spice to her information. But how would she explain it, or what it really meant?

  “You weren’t that far off from where the bloodhound found Ray Stern,” said Sandstrom.

  “A half mile up the hill. That’s a long way.”

  “Not that far if you really think about it,” said Sandstrom.

  “A whole different terrain; if you’d go up there, you’d see.”

  “I believe you saw the guy who was trying to hide Stern’s body. And it’s possible with the storm that you weren’t exactly where you thought you were. Correct?”

  “Wrong.” Sandstrom’s stubbornness was maddening. “I could show you the precise spot Bear was—”

  “Bear?”

  “My horse. I could show you the spot Bear was standing. It was a ways up from where they found Stern.”

  “A ways?” said Sandstrom. “No chance of a mix-up? Have you thought of that?”

  The chant started low, but clear.

  “What the—?” said Sandstrom.

  The chanters were stepping off a school bus.

  “Two, four, six, eight—don’t forget to investigate. Three, five, seven, nine—maybe murder isn’t a crime.”

  “What the—?” Sandstrom said again.

  There were about twenty of them in a neat formation on the sidewalk. They all sported bright yellow sweatshirts with big blue letters across the front: FATE.

  Sandstrom stepped outside and Allison was right behind him. Based on Ellenberg’s elated response, Sandstrom’s move couldn’t have been more perfect for her needs. Ellenberg wielded a mini megaphone and shouted the loudest. After one refrain of their chorus, the group pointed its placards squarely at the gaggle of cops thirty yards across the parking lot.

  Ray’s Killer: There’s a Home on the Range

  Cops Are a Hunter’s Best Friend

  Cops and Hunters, Birds of a Feather.

  Four television cameras panned over to focus on Sandstrom and his deputies, who watched the proceedings with idle curiosity, nothing more.

  “Good Christ,” said Sandstrom through a half smirk, stepping back inside after seeing all the cameras. “Someone hand me my rabbit gun. This is like the arcade games in the carnival and I’m slightly out of practice.”

  “Looks like we’re down to the hard-core protesters,” said the toothpick chomper.

  Allison stood behind the knot of cops, hoping she was out of view of the cameras.

  “That woman Ellenberg has one shrill set of pipes,” said Sandstrom. “I’d rather listen to twenty girls with fresh manicures scrape their nails on a blackboard.”

  “Isn’t that Dean Applegate behind Ellenberg?” said Gerard.

  “Who?” said Allison.

  “The hunter with a sudden case of conscience,” said Gerard. “Claims Ellenberg and company made him think twice about killing animals.”

  Allison studied the lanky string bean behind Ellenberg. He hardly looked like prime hunter material. There was something tentative about the way he walked. His chanting lacked conviction.

  “The reformed hunter,” said Sandstrom. “I believe you’re right. By the way, did anyone talk to him?”

  The deputies looked at each other and back at Sandstrom.

  “You guys play mumbly peg or whatever it is you do to decide who gets the privilege,” said Sandstrom. “But do it. Don’t make a big scene here. Wait ’til he’s back at whatever place they’re staying or whatever hole he crawled out from.”

  “Gee, chief, don’t you think this would be one you’d enjoy? Making him sweat?” said Gerard.

  Sandstrom considered the suggestion.

  “I believe you’re right. Now that you mention it, I believe you’re right.” A gleeful, boyish look spread across his face. “Now, we could stand here all day like we’ve never seen a stupid parade before, or we could go inside and get back to work. Right now, we’re sort of helping Dr. Doolittle’s wife prove her point. Men?”

  Sandstrom backpedaled into the station and headed to a rear office. His posse followed smartly.

  Allison stood for a few minutes watching the protesters from a closer vantage point. One camera crew was breaking down. The other was doing an interview with Ellenberg. Applegate had the megaphone now. The chants were starting to lose their zing. The moment was over; the protesters had sent their message.

  Allison pulled up closer to listen to the interview with Ellenberg. “... It’s just clear this is not a priority for the sheriff. Painfully clear, painfully obvious—and tragic for Ray Stern.”

  “What exactly do you think the sheriff should be doing?” The reporter was young, looked like he knew his way around a make-up kit.

  “Well, I’m no detective,” said Ellenberg. “But the first thing I’d do is find out who was in the valley that day and interview every one of them, one by one. Seems pretty basic. But even Dean Applegate here, he hasn’t been quizzed. It’s obvious they want to kiss it off. But there’s a hunter up there who can’t tell the difference between a 145-pound man dressed in a deerskin and a legitimate—if you can even use that word—elk target. Someone pulled the trigger and it’s the sheriff ’s job to figure out who it was.”

  The reporter turned to his cameraman and gave an invisible signal. They were done.

  Ellenberg turned around as if she expected another reporter to be waiting.

  “Hello,” said Allison.

  “And you’re with ...?” said Ellenberg.

  “Nobody,” said Allison. “Just me.”

  “Are you here to sign up?” said Ellenberg. “It looks as if you might be another convert like our friend Mr. Applegate. Are you a huntress?”

  “A what?”

  “A hunter.”

  “No, I’ve never killed an elk or a deer. You know, pulled the trigger. My name is Allison Coil and—”

  “Why all the hunting attire then?”

  “I work for a hunting outfitter. I’m a guide. I help the hunters. I know what you think about hunters and hunting, obviously, but that’s not why I wanted to ask you ...”

  “What?”

  The protesters slowly gathered around their leader. Dean Applegate moved in close and stood behind Ellenberg. They were more than comrades.

  “I heard you were up near where they found Ray Stern’s body.”

  “That’s right,” said Ellenberg.

  “Excuse me.”

  The voice came from a man coming up behind Allison. It was Deputy Gerard.

  “Dean Applegate?” the deputy inquired. “We’d like to ask you a few questions in private if you don’t mind.”

  “Mind?” said Ellenberg. “Now? Right now?”

  “Excuse me,” said Gerard. “I’m talking to Mr. Applegate here.”

  Ellenberg and Applegate exchanged glances. If Allison knew anything about reading a face, she sensed a touch of fear beneath Applegate’s wan, forced half smile. Applegate shuffled off with the deputy.

  “Tell them everything,” said Ellenberg, grabbing Applegate’s FATE sweatshirt near the T. “Ask them why they haven’t done more until now to figure out who killed Ray Stern.”

  “I guess you
got their attention,” Allison said to Ellenberg.

  “We’ll see,” she said. “I’m not too impressed with your police authority talent up here.”

  “There are good people on the force,” said Allison. “Maybe they’re stretched thin.”

  Ellenberg’s crew mingled closely around her, protecting the FATE queen bee.

  “Hard to see the effort,” said Ellenberg.

  “But you were up there?” said Allison. “How close were you?”

  “Close enough. I identified his body, right where that chicken hunter left him. Can you imagine? Making a mistake like that, making a huge mistake like that and then leaving?”

  “No, I really can’t,” said Allison. “I have to agree with you on that.”

  “It’s clear you don’t agree with us on much else.”

  “How do you figure?” Allison wondered if this could turn confrontational. What was her exit strategy?

  “Your whole hunting guide garb here,” said Ellenberg. “And you already said you help the hunters with their slaughter.”

  The words dangled like bait. She tried not to nibble. Or, worse, swallow.

  “I was wondering if you could show me on a map, maybe, where you were, where they found Ray Stern?”

  “Why?” asked Ellenberg. “What’s it to you? What difference does it make?”

  “I was up there, the day he was shot. I saw someone dragging something, probably a body.”

  Ellenberg focused her gaze and cocked her head ever so slightly. If Ellenberg had learned the move by watching spaghetti westerns with Clint Eastwood, she was a poor mimic.

  “Have you told the police?” said Ellenberg.

  “Yes,” said Allison. “Everything. The thing is someone else is missing, too. Another guide. He works for a different outfit than mine, but nobody has seen him. His friends are worried sick. They think he might have been up there too, at the top of Ripplecreek Canyon.”

  Ellenberg relaxed, sharpened her eye contact.

  “What did you see?”

  “A man dragging something. I was looking through a snowstorm. It was all fuzzy, like a TV with bad reception. The cops think I saw the man who shot Ray. I think they’re dead wrong because it was further up the hill. Much further. I think I saw something else.”

  Allison scanned Ellenberg’s crew: a few older women, a few earnest young men, some scruffy and some clean cut. One reminded her of Vic, the young stud she’d met at the camp on the day all of this started unraveling. He looked enough like Vic to be his brother. She glanced around the ring of Ellenberg supporters: FATE, FATE, FATE, FATE, FATE on their sweatshirts. As if Allison needed a reminder about the difference between one airplane seat and the next.

  “I’m not much help,” said Ellenberg. “I couldn’t tell you with any degree of accuracy exactly where we were. Maybe the cops have GPS coordinates from the spot where Ray was murdered.”

  Shot, thought Allison. Accidentally.

  “I don’t know,” said Allison. “They think I’m the one who’s confused.”

  “Sorry,” said Ellenberg. “But how exactly do you sit there and watch these beautiful animals being killed and carved up?”

  Actually, I don’t sit there, I show them exactly how to gut and quarter.

  “Probably not a good idea to get into it,” said Allison. “I think we can agree to disagree on that one.”

  “No, seriously,” said Ellenberg. “These majestic, beautiful creatures. Slaughtered. And you think it’s okay? You seem like a woman with a bit of a worldview, if I’m not mistaken. It’s a hunch but you seem smarter than the average local up here.”

  Allison again looked over the FATE throng. They were waiting for an answer.

  “I’m from the city, originally, it’s true,” said Allison. “I respect what you’re doing and I respect your point of view. It’s not mine. The fact of life today is that you can’t let the elk and deer populations explode unchecked. There are too many. And hunting is older than the wheel. It’s the way it is. You can’t go back and undo the fact that human beings have the ability and the desire to hunt. It’s an animal instinct.”

  Ellenberg shook her head slowly.

  “You think people—societies, whatever—have no control over their future?”

  “I think reality is reality,” said Allison. “That’s all.”

  Some people die accidentally. Some people die because they are hunted and killed in war. They all end up in the same situation. Hunting is part of human nature.

  Allison took a tentative step back. She knew this was headed nowhere but ugly.

  “I do wish you well in pressing the police to figure out who killed Ray Stern,” said Allison. “All hunters are trained to identify what they are shooting before they pull the trigger.”

  Allison hoped the common ground would signal truce.

  “But you enable the slaughter of deer and elk,” said Ellenberg. “That’s what you do. You helped put this moron in the situation where he could pull the trigger.”

  “Sorry,” said Allison.

  “You are?” said Ellenberg.

  “No, I didn’t mean sorry, sorry. I meant sorry, that’s not the way I see it.”

  “Then there’s blood on your hands, too. Animal blood.”

  The FATE bunch stirred and Allison could feel their stares.

  If looks could kill, she thought.

  ****

  “You did what with your rifle?”

  “I know it sounds crazy. And I shouldn’t have littered. But first I whacked the barrel on a rock. I mean, it’s not useable or anything, wherever it is.”

  Sheriff Jerry Sandstrom attended to his notebook. Applegate waited, going for his best relaxed and unconcerned look. He considered the notion that there would probably be a whole battery of folks interviewing him if Grumley had told Sandstrom what had really happened. On the other hand, they might be setting a trap. Either way, Applegate felt his eyes were too blurry and wondered if that was noticeable. He wondered, too, if there was any way Sandstrom could tell that a muscle high up on his cheekbone had begun to twitch.

  “Do you know which cliff?”

  “Can’t remember. It was a spot where the rifle went a long ways down.”

  “And what type of rifle was it?”

  “A Winchester.”

  “What model?”

  “A .270 I think. I don’t think hunting was in my blood, which is where it belongs if you can bring yourself to shoot—”

  “No lectures, please,” said Sandstrom.

  Applegate sipped coffee from a Styrofoam cup, studied the creases in Sandstrom’s pant legs. He concentrated on keeping his story straight. Ellenberg had offered to accompany him, but he decided it would look too protective, too paranoid.

  “So when did you guys get word of Ray Stern’s death?” said Sandstrom.

  “The first day back down.”

  “And then you hiked with your rifle back up to some spot to throw it away? Isn’t that going to a lot of work?”

  “Maybe a bit impulsive,” said Applegate. “But it seemed right.”

  “You didn’t tell any of your old college buddies what you were doing?”

  “No. I didn’t think it would go over too well.”

  “Where, approximately, did you decide to heave it?”

  Applegate shifted uncomfortably. What if they actually had the gun right now? And what if this was all a ruse? He had no choice but to keep the storyline up.

  “There’s a trail that leads up the next drainage east of Ripplecreek.”

  “An hour’s hike, two?”

  They weren’t really going to look. “Two or three is more like it.”

  “And where were you on the day Ray Stern was shot?”

  “I took a walk.”

  “A walk as in hunt or a walk as in hike?”

  “I think I had my rifle along, but it was a joke. We hadn’t seen anything bigger than a marmot, bless their fuzzy little bodies, the whole two weeks. The others wanted to l
ie low, except Grumley.”

  He realized this was a subject he shouldn’t have raised. It brought up all the sticky issues about time and place. Sandstrom didn’t ask a question, so Applegate thought he would fill in the blank. “He didn’t miss a chance to hunt. The rest of us were on our own.”

  “So, a hike. And you went—where?”

  “Down the valley, if I remember right, even though I was kind of interested in seeing the protest and how it was going to work. I guess I had sympathies. Even then.”

  Enough, enough, Applegate told himself, although now it would be difficult to appear curt and cool after putting on a chatty demeanor. He was having difficulty imagining what Grumley might have told them. In a separate line of analysis, he wondered if Grumley had fed the cops enough stuff, perhaps anonymously, to put them on his tail.

  “Draw me a line where you hiked—here,” said Sandstrom, unfolding a topographic map.

  “It’s been so long.”

  “The best you can,” said Sandstrom.

  Applegate studied the map. He spotted the ridge where they had camped and he doodled a line from there in the opposite direction from where Ray Stern had taken his last steps.

  “And where did you chuck your rifle?”

  Applegate drew a line to a place where the contour lines were jammed closely together and it looked like it might be steep enough to toss something off.

  “So you were up by Lizard’s Tongue on your hike, the day you didn’t expect to find anything?”

  “In that area.”

  “But you didn’t see anything else. Tracks? Nothing?”

  “If I did, I’d tell you,” said Applegate.

  “And you returned to the camp at the end of the day?”

  “No, I hiked out all the way when it started to snow.”

  In fact, Applegate had headed down as instructed by Grumley, but he was too afraid to start a fire or attempt to survive a night in the wilderness alone. So he had stumbled down the trail. He had managed to not lose the way. He snuck into one of the barns, where he had shivered and sobbed until dawn. At first light he walked to his car and went for a long enough drive to warm up. He found a café out by the interstate and ordered food but couldn’t eat.

  “It’s not every day that a hunter suddenly changes his mind about hunting.” Sandstrom put his hand by his right temple and turned an imaginary key.