Descent (A Stone Mountain Mystery Book 1)

by Kristina Stanley

  “William, Fred and I have reviewed the video of Steve McKenzie’s fall. There’s definitely something odd about it.” Kalin looked to William. “Maybe you could explain.”

  William straightened and after a moment said, “The video shows McKenzie’s boot disengaging from his binding. There’s nothing unusual about that. What is unusual is he appears to have stepped out of his binding without resistance. He didn’t catch an edge or hit anything.” William stopped talking and let the information sink in.

  “You have a theory?” Reed asked.

  “I think his DIN setting was too low.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. He’d know what his DIN setting should be. Don’t the racers check that before skiing?”

  William shifted in his seat. “You’d think, but if he had a regular tuner, he might not worry about it.”

  “Are you saying his tuner made a mistake?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Where are his skis now? I want them examined.”

  Kalin took over from William. “Security is picking them up from mountain ops and taking them to the security office. Fred will keep them locked until we decide what the next step is.”

  “Tell him to give the skis to the RCMP. If a tuner caused this, we want to be sure. I don’t want to hamper an investigation into the tuning team. The resort is not at fault.” Almost as an afterthought, Reed asked, “Who is his tuner?”

  You mean who was his tuner. It wasn’t easy when someone just stopped being. Nora must be devastated, and if Kalin could shield her from being investigated, she would, but Reed could find out easily enough, so she might as well give up her name.

  “Kalin, who tunes his skis?”

  “His girlfriend, Nora Cummings.”

  * * *

  RCMP Constable Miller found Ben in the employee change room. “Can I speak with you in private?”

  Ben glanced at the curtain bisecting the room shared by ski patrol, ski school and lift attendants. The other side was allocated to female employees. He didn’t know if anyone occupied the area and half expected Vicky to jump out unannounced and kiss him again. He pulled his sweater on and led Miller to an adjacent room used for storing uniforms.

  “This will have to do. I don’t have an office.” Ben and Miller knew each other because of the interaction between the fire department and the RCMP. Miller was a good cop. At thirty-four, Miller had kept himself in shape, and the only sign of his age was the hint of grey at his temples.

  Miller’s Kevlar vest added bulk to his broad chest. He stood erect, three inches taller than Ben, with his RCMP cap tucked under his arm and a notebook in his hand, and chuckled. “It’s fine if you can ignore the smell. I need to ask you about the skiing accident.”

  “Sure.” Ben was glad Kalin had called him about her meeting with Fred earlier in the day. The RCMP must be taking the DIN theory seriously. Having a girlfriend in the know was handy even if she did tend to get herself into trouble.

  “Is this the first death you’ve dealt with while on duty?”

  “No. Why?”

  “You seem composed. That’s all. You were first on scene with Steve McKenzie?”

  “I was. Is something going on that I should know about?” Ben examined his actions from the moment McKenzie fell until he handed him over to the paramedics. He hadn’t made a mistake. He was sure of it.

  “Did you see him fall?”

  “I did. I was on my snowmobile at the top of the run watching the racers train. It’s part of the contract for renting the run, ski patrol being on the hill during training, I mean.”

  “Can you describe what you saw?”

  “Sure. He was fast. He slapped the second gate with his arm, cleared the next and fell rounding the fourth gate. He hit the ground head first and rolled into the safety netting. His body was limp when he rolled, and I assumed he was unconscious. When I reached him, his vital signs were absent.”

  Miller wrote in his notebook and then asked, “You treated him?”

  “William, my boss, arrived. We followed protocol. Stabilized his neck, initiated CPR, and got him down the hill. The paramedics waited at the base of the run and took over once we reached them. Did someone complain about how I handled the scene?”

  “Is it usual for William to actively patrol?”

  “Not really. We’re short staffed. We won’t have our full team here until the season starts. The other patroller on duty was treating a sprained ankle. Our contract with the team requires us to have two patrollers on the hill during each training session.”

  “Was McKenzie the only skier to fall?”

  “No. I was surprised Coach Jenkinson didn’t postpone the training. I’d say over half the team didn’t finish. The guy with the sprained ankle fell a couple of runs before McKenzie.”

  “Did you touch McKenzie’s equipment?”

  “Just to get his ski off him.”

  “Did you alter any of the settings on either ski?”

  Ben had put the heel of his hand on the back of the binding still attached and pressed hard to release the boot, but he hadn’t looked at the DIN setting. “No.”

  “Did anything seem unusual about the fall?”

  Ben thought a moment. “Not really, but I was at the top of the run, four gates away.”

  “Did you see anyone touch the ski that came off?”

  “I was focused on McKenzie. I’m not sure who brought it to the ski patrol clinic.”

  “Alright. If you think of anything else, give me a call.”

  Miller’s standard-issue black boots echoed on the cement floor and before he reached the outer door, Ben called out, “There were people taking pictures.”

  * * *

  Ben arrived at the fire station half an hour before fire practice was scheduled to begin. The hall was empty, and the quietness of the place gave him time to think. He walked through the lounge. The four Ikea couches were vacant, but after fire practice they’d be full of firefighters watching the forty-two inch flat screen TV and doing their best to empty the beer fridge.

  Ben entered the adjoining kitchen, turned on the coffee machine and headed for the locker room to change into his turnout gear. He opened his locker, and the door blocked his view to the shower room. He stripped off his shirt and hung it on the silver hook.

  “I see you still come to practice early,” Vicky said.

  He stood still, hiding behind the locker door. What the hell?

  “Are you going to come out from behind there? I won’t bite.”

  Ben lowered his chin to his chest and sighed. He eased the door shut and turned to face Vicky. “What are you doing?”

  Vicky stood before him wearing half of her turnout gear. “I asked the chief if I could rejoin the fire department. He said yes.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Ben threw a towel at her. “Cover yourself.”

  The towel dropped to the tile floor in front of Vicky’s feet. She tucked her thumbs underneath the suspenders and snapped them against her bare skin. “You used to like the way I looked in my turnouts.”

  “I told you I’m seeing someone.”

  “That never stopped you before. What’s a little romp with me? Before anyone gets here. No one will know.”

  Ben was at a loss for words. He had to get rid of her, and do it fast. Vicky bit her bottom lip and tilted her head. Her blonde hair draped across her shoulder, and a familiar line of freckles dotted her collarbone.

  “I won’t tell your girlfriend. There’s a big comfy couch in the lounge.”

  Ben’s feet felt as if they’d been crazy glued to the floor. He couldn’t seem to move away from her. “As I remember it, the last thing you said to me was, ‘Don’t come near me again.’”

  Vicky seductively worked her way a few steps closer to Ben. “That’s history. I made a mistake. But that doesn’t mean we can’t rectify the situation. Come on. Remember how much fun we used to have?”

  “I remember you broke my heart.”

  “Si
nce when do you have a heart when it comes to women? Don’t pull that on me.”

  The outer door to the fire station creaked open.

  “Anyone here?” Fred asked.

  “You need to go,” Ben said to Vicky.

  Instead of taking the hallway back to the women’s locker room, Vicky left by the door to the lounge.

  “It’s my lucky day,” Fred said.

  “Not yours, stud. Someone else’s,” Vicky said.

  Fred poked his head into the locker room. “Hey.”

  Ben raised his hands, palms facing Fred. “Nothing happened.”

  “Not my business.”

  “Fuck. She surprised me.” Why couldn’t it have been someone other than one of Kalin’s employees? He had to tell her about Vicky soon, but he just didn’t know how.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Nine p.m., and Ben still wasn’t home from fire practice. Kalin paced the living room, picking at a tissue as if it had committed some offense and needed to be destroyed. Earlier he’d wanted to talk to her. What if he wanted to get back with Vicky? What if he was with her now?

  “Grrr,” she said to Chica, and Chica wagged her tail. Kalin’s cell rang, distracting her from her dreadful thoughts. Constable Miller asked her to meet him in her office. She slipped into jeans and a sweater, and without using a brush, pulled her hair into a ponytail. She scribbled a note for Ben and grabbed her Jeep keys. Chica followed her, but Kalin shut the door to the garage before the dog pushed through.

  Kalin met Miller outside the administration building, unlocked the door and motioned for him to follow. “This must be important if you couldn’t wait until tomorrow.”

  She flipped the switch to the main hall light, illuminating enough of the floor to expose her office door. A red exit sign glowed at the far end of the hallway.

  “Thanks for coming in so late. I’ve just finished interviewing and need to ask you a few questions. I could’ve waited, but I want to talk with you about one of the resort staff and don’t want the rest of the employees to have any insight into the investigation. Gossip seems to travel fast.”

  Kalin laughed. She’d never heard Miller put together a string of words that long. He seemed almost nervous. “That’s a bit of an understatement.” She led Miller into her new office. “You’ve had a long day.”

  “I have. You changed offices?”

  Her office was a third of the size of Reed’s, but the carpet wasn’t worn through to the floor like in her old office, and the chair was new. There was even room for two guest chairs and a small side table. “I’ve been promoted. I’m the director of HR and Security now.”

  “Congratulations. You should meet the rest of our team. Security often interacts with us.”

  “I’d like that.” Kalin wondered if the other constables were all as good looking as Miller. Maybe the ability to charm female suspects was an RCMP prerequisite.

  “Can you pull Nora Cummings’ file?”

  “I can, but I’m not sure I should. I have to follow the privacy laws when it comes to employee information. Why do you want to see her paperwork?”

  “You know she was Steve McKenzie’s girlfriend?”

  “I do.”

  He removed his RCMP cap and tucked it underneath his arm. “I can go through official channels, but that takes time. I’d like to eliminate suspects quickly. If Nora had nothing to do with McKenzie’s death, then I won’t use any information from the file. If it turns out she did, I’ll ask for the file officially.”

  “Are you saying she set his bindings incorrectly?”

  “I’m not saying anything. I’ll do a background check on anyone close to McKenzie. It’s standard procedure.”

  “What does it mean if she accidentally set the DIN wrong?”

  “She could be charged with manslaughter.”

  Kalin’s stomach tightened. She asked Miller to wait while she retrieved Nora’s file from the HR file cabinet. Nora might have made a horrible mistake and set McKenzie’s bindings to the wrong number. She was Kalin’s friend but also an employee, and right now Kalin felt the less she knew the better, so she wasn’t going to ask Miller for any more information on Nora. She didn’t want to have to lie to her.

  “Do you know Nora well?”

  “We became friends over the summer. Ben employs her as a fly fishing guide.”

  “Then you were friends with McKenzie too?”

  “I didn’t know him at all. He hung with racers.”

  “Were McKenzie and Nora close?”

  “I think so, but I only know what she told me about him.”

  “What was that?”

  Kalin thought a moment before responding. “She liked tuning his skis and was excited about race training. She didn’t like that he was snobby about who he hung out with. She wanted him to hang with her friends too. I got the impression she believed they had a future together. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Did you ever see them fight?”

  “No, but I didn’t see them together. Nora never said they fought.”

  “Anything odd about her?”

  Revealing Nora bought a pregnancy test was too much of a betrayal. “Not really,” Kalin said.

  Miller looked at the file Kalin hugged to her chest. “How about if I just read the file? I won’t take it with me. Will that make this easier for you?”

  She’d known Miller for almost a year, and she trusted him. Although unethical for her to show him Nora’s file, she wanted to help with the investigation. Besides the file put Nora in a positive light. The security team needed the RCMP’s cooperation, and she didn’t want to do anything to mess up the relationship Fred had developed with them over the years. She passed Miller the file and watched his face as he read. He removed a pen from his front pocket and wrote in his notebook.

  “What are you writing?”

  “Her social insurance number and birthdate.”

  * * *

  “This is lame.” The bar was quiet, no one was dancing and Ian Reed was sick of drinking beer. “I need a joint.”

  He tugged on Monica’s arm, pulling her toward the door. Monica grabbed her ski jacket and put it on over her cropped sweater. Ian snuck a glance at her belly button piercing before she zipped up.

  The rest of the gang followed, and they milled outside the bar without a plan. The full moon illuminated the lift station. “Let’s climb to the top of the bull wheel,” someone suggested.

  “We can’t do that,” Monica said.

  One of the women shoulder bumped Monica. “You’re not going to turn boring just because you’re the HR manager now, are you?”

  “No, but we really shouldn’t go up there.”

  “It’s not that high. Come on. It’s not like the lift is operating or anything.” Ian climbed the fixed ladder that led to the top of the Alpine Tracks lift station. His boots knocked snow off the rungs, clearing the way for the others.

  The group of eight sat cross-legged, taking up most of the steel surface. Someone lit a joint and passed it around the circle. The fog of their breath, mixed with the smoke, created an eerie atmosphere.

  Dizzy from the mix of beer and marijuana, Ian leaned back onto his elbows. A round of giggles hit the circle, and he wasn’t sure what everyone was laughing at, but he laughed too.

  “I like your smile,” Monica said. “Don’t look so shocked. I’m not hitting on you. You racers have such big egos.”

  Ian rolled his eyes.

  “So I guess you get an official place on the team,” Monica whispered to Ian.

  “You never know with Jenkinson. I think he hates me.”

  “Why would he?”

  “I did something stupid, and his brother-in-law has it in for me.”

  “What did you do?”

  Ian glanced at the others sitting nearby. “Nothing I want to talk about.”

  “Come on, I’ll share if you do. They’re all too stoned to hear us.”

  The cold from the steel surface seeped through Ian’s jean
s and he shifted, moving closer to Monica. “What’ve you ever done that’s stupid?”

  “You heard about the Bingo game last year?”

  Ian chuckled. He’d heard. He knew only women competed but men took advantage of the rules, and wished he’d been at the resort to take part. A guy he’d talked to had gotten a lot of mileage out of the game. The first girl who slept with Ben Timlin got an automatic win. Otherwise, squares were marked off based on where a woman had sex. The riskier the spot, the more squares marked off. Maybe the game would happen again this year.

  “I almost won,” Monica said.

  “No way.”

  “Yup. Not that I went crazy or anything, but I got four squares crossed off for one time.”

  Ian pushed himself off his elbows and looked at Monica. “There weren’t many things four squares were awarded for.”

  “I’m not proud. I was on the gondola with McKenzie. There were guests in the next car. Doing the dirty where guests could see you was the trick. We screwed the entire way from the lower village to the upper village. McKenzie never said a word. Walked off the gondola and didn’t speak to me again. I stopped playing after that. I hated him.” Monica’s eyes widened. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “Don’t worry. Not many people liked McKenzie, but who wants to say that now?”

  “What did you do that was stupid?”

  Ian checked to see if any of the others were listening. They were all too busy with their own conversations, so he told Monica about sleeping with the coach’s daughter in Fernie and getting kicked off the team. He left out the part about the pregnancy and his regret at suggesting the abortion.

  Monica held out her little finger to Ian. “Pinkie swear never to repeat our secrets.”

  He twisted his finger around hers, and they made a pact. Ian blinked at the flashlight beaming in his face.

  “Security. Get down from there.”

  “Oh shit,” Monica said. The group stepped down the ladder and stood with hanging heads.

  “Dude,” Ian said. “You don’t need to report this.”

  The security officer hesitated as if thinking about his options, but as soon as Ian heard Kalin’s voice, he knew the guard would follow protocol.