Zero-Degree Murder

by M. L. Rowland

  Gracie blew a large bubble, popping it quietly so as to not disturb Rob.

  She had been able to identify only four distinct sets of prints. The Reeboks, the honeycomb, and the flat sole were unique enough that probably only one person had laid each of them. Hiking or work boots with a lug sole were common enough that several different people could have laid them, but possibly only one person.

  She dug inside a side pocket of her parka and pulled out her little notebook. She paged back until she found where she had cursorily scribbled the track measurements. The smaller prints with the honeycomb pattern measured three and a half inches wide by ten inches long, small enough to indicate a woman had laid them—Diana or Cristina, although they were probably too small for the string bean, Cristina. The lug-sole pattern going both ways was four and a half by thirteen inches, almost an inch and half longer than Gracie’s ladies size 9 hiking boots. That was probably too big for Cristina. Unless Cristina’s feet were the size of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, those tracks had definitely been laid by a man. Rob’s boot had the smooth sole. If Tristan was wearing Reeboks, that left Carlos or Joseph wearing the lug-sole boot.

  At least two people had left the outcropping and hiked back down the trail. Two people, one with the flat soles, presumably Rob’s, and one with the honeycomb pattern, very possibly Diana’s, had continued up the trail past the rock promontory. But only Rob had come back. Why? Why separate? And why would Diana or whoever it was go that way in the first place? There was nothing out there but acres and acres of wilderness area. The Aspen Springs Trail eventually split—one fork leading up to the summit of San Raphael, the other meandering for almost fifteen miles down the mountain all the way to the desert floor. No matter which way she had gone, the odds of her being found alive were pretty close to nonexistent.

  But where had the rest of the group gone? Had they descended into the canyon as Rob had? Gracie was confident the churned earth she and Cashman had followed had been caused by only one person, two at the most. Certainly not by three and definitely not five.

  Dead end.

  She turned her attention back to the two sets of tracks returning to the trailhead.

  If someone had been injured severely enough to produce as much blood as there was on the outcropping, then two people—a man and a woman—might have headed back to the trailhead to call for help. Since Gracie had noticed no blood on the trail itself, it was a safe assumption that neither person traveling down the trail had been seriously wounded. But that didn’t answer what had happened to the injured person. Or the two people hiking back.

  No one from the second, smaller hiking party had returned to the trailhead before she and Cashman had set out from the CP and they had met no one along the trail.

  She and Cashman had blown their whistles while walking along the majority of the trail. No one had responded to the whistles.

  So where had they gone?

  Another dead end.

  Gracie stretched, taking great satisfaction when she felt her back snap, crackle, and pop. She knew she hadn’t taken her analysis of what had happened far enough. If she gave it enough time and thought, she might be able to figure it all out. But her neck and shoulders had tightened up from sitting in the same hunched position for so long. If a crime had occurred, she decided, there were detectives to deal with it. From now on, her main focus would be to keep Rob Christian warm and safe until the cavalry arrived.

  Then get the hell out of there. Fast.

  CHAPTER

  40

  UPON gaining the trail, Cashman had paused momentarily to allow his breathing to slow enough so he wouldn’t sound winded over the radio. But when he had turned on the HT and pressed the Transmit button, he received only the loud wonk. Another effort fifty yards down the trail produced the same result. He stashed the radio inside his jacket intending to try again farther on.

  Now Cashman hiked down the trail, maintaining a fast, steady pace. One misstep could mean death. Or worse. But the searcher’s mind wasn’t focused on where to place his feet, nor the trail itself, nor even on gaining a radio signal to call in. It had leapfrogged ahead to the Command Post, where reporters and TV cameras most likely waited.

  This is the big time, Cashman thought. Rob Christian is big news. Exhilaration snared his breath inside his rib cage. If, instead of radioing in, he hiked all the way back to the CP, he maybe could make tonight’s L.A. news. Maybe even national news. Maybe even international!

  He increased his pace to a trot, then almost immediately skidded to a stop as he remembered that up ahead a bootleg trail fell off from the main trail, zigzagging down into the canyon and up the other side, cutting off the long, time-consuming switchback that constituted the final approach to the trailhead and the parking lot. The offshoot trail didn’t show on the map because the National Forest Service prohibited leaving the marked trail in a wilderness area. But years of hiking in the mountains had taught Cashman most of the shortcuts.

  His hands shook as he pulled his map from his parka and unfolded it. He located his position. Fuckin’ A! he thought. I can cut off more than a mile!

  Because the bootleg trail wasn’t maintained, it was riskier than the main trail—steeper, rockier, more unstable footing. But the danger didn’t faze him. He had hiked thousands of miles in his lifetime. He was at his peak physically, nimble and foot-sure. “Piece o’ cake!”

  This is really it, he thought as he refolded the map. This is my chance to make the big time. This’ll prove to Wanda I’m not such a fuckup after all.

  Images flashed in his mind’s eye. Wanda and the girls smiling up at him as a medal was pinned on his chest. Rob shaking his hand. His own picture plastered on national television.

  His breath caught in his chest at his next thought. The team might even make him Commander.

  Cashman stuffed the map into his jacket pocket and turned back toward the trail, a wide grin on his face.

  Wouldn’t that just fry Hunter’s ass! Arrogant sonofabitch. “This is gonna be great!” he crowed to the heavens.

  Cashman heard a footstep on the dirt behind him. He was turning, a questions on his lips, when a heavy blow from behind knocked his head back and pitched him headlong over the side.

  His body slammed into the side of the mountain. A shock wave of pain shot through him. He tumbled and cartwheeled, picking up speed, out of control, bouncing off tree trunks and sharp rocks, arms and legs flailing.

  He heard his thigh bone break with a loud crack!

  The last thought that flashed through Steve Cashman’s mind was I’m going to die.

  Then the missile that was his body hurtled over the edge of a precipice, free-falling two hundred feet to smash onto the jagged tumble of rocks and brush below.

  CHAPTER

  41

  “THAT dumbass piece of crap peckerhead! That’s exactly what he did!”

  Gracie still sat cross-legged at the entrance of the shelter staring out through the peep-hole. Her legs and back were stiff and her butt was numb from sitting so long in the same position.

  Rob lay behind her, still sleeping.

  Or he had been until her outburst.

  His voice floated up out of the depths. “Precisely what dumbass piece of crap peckerhead did precisely what?”

  “Nobody important,” Gracie said over her shoulder. “Sorry if I woke you.”

  “I wasn’t asleep.”

  Rob was lying, she knew. But she had lied, too. The dumbass piece of crap peckerhead wasn’t nobody. And he wasn’t unimportant. The dumbass piece of crap peckerhead was Cashman. He had been gone for more than three hours.

  What’s taking him so long?

  As the morning had lazed toward afternoon with no reappearance by her teammate, Gracie’s nerves had stretched tighter and tighter. By her reckoning, it shouldn’t have taken Steve more than ninety minutes, two hours at th
e most, to climb out of the canyon, hike up the trail the distance it took to locate a clear radio signal, relay to the Command Post the coordinates of their location, receive the well-deserved accolades upon finding Rob Christian, and hike back to the bivouac to wait for the relief rescue team to show up.

  Cashman was more than an hour late.

  Had something bad happened to him? Had he injured himself somehow? Gracie had considered the different possibilities until it hit her in a blinding flash of the obvious. Nothing bad had happened to him. He hadn’t injured himself in some way. He had hiked all the way back to the CP right into the waiting arms of the media.

  As soon as she thought of it, Gracie knew without a doubt that this was exactly what he had done.

  “When I see you again, Cashman” she whispered, “I’m gonna wring your neck like a Thanksgiving turkey.”

  Her normally low blood pressure shot upward toward the national average as she envisioned him lounging in the Command Post’s blissful warmth and comfort, sipping hot chocolate and reveling in the congratulatory handshakes and slaps on the back, never ever thinking of giving Ralph or Gracie their due as fellow team members.

  Not that she sought out the limelight. And recognition for superior service was appropriate. It just goaded the hell out of her when someone else grabbed it for his or her own instead of acknowledging the team as a comprehensive unit. They were, after all, the Timber Creek Search and Rescue Team, emphasis on Team. Gracie and every man on the team took the hit for every member’s screw-up. It was only right and fair that each team member should also bask in the glow of a successful mission.

  For the umpteenth time Gracie glanced at her watch. She calculated that if Cashman had hiked all the way back to the Command Post, considering the snail’s pace that circumstances were evaluated, assignments were doled out, and a relief team actually hit the trail, the earliest anyone would arrive at the bivouac would be another half an hour.

  With that realization, Gracie arched her back again and relaxed the rubber band of her nerves with a little deep-breathing session.

  The clamor inside her head diminished and she became aware of the silence behind her. She had jolted Rob awake with her outburst, then retreated back into her own thoughts.

  She swiveled her body around so that she faced the man. “Are you awake?”

  “Yah.”

  He didn’t sound very convincing. She forged ahead anyway. “Can we talk again about what might have happened up there on the trail?”

  Rob propped himself up on one elbow and ran a hand down his face. “Sorry?”

  “You don’t remember if there was a fight of some kind? Or if someone actually tried to kill you?”

  Rob yawned. “Well, we—”

  “Wasn’t there alcohol or something for lunch? How much did you have to drink?”

  “What are you asking?” Rob sounded fully awake now. He sat up the rest of the way, eyes dark and focused on Gracie. “I wasn’t pissed, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  “Pissed?”

  “Pissed. Arseholed. Drunk. I wasn’t drunk.” The anger in his voice was unmistakable. “I had one glass of champagne. Less than one.”

  “Your friends said you didn’t have any.”

  “Did they?” he asked, taken aback for a moment. “Publicity damage control, most likely. I was barely merry when we set off hiking again. I was stone-cold sober farther up the trail.”

  “I thought you said you don’t remember what happened.”

  “I don’t remember exactly what happened later.” Rob’s voice was so low and quiet it reminded Gracie of a German shepherd’s silent growl, more ominous and threatening than before. “I do remember having almost nothing to drink at lunch.” He jabbed his hands around in his jacket pockets, finally producing a sandwich bag filled with something Gracie couldn’t identify, a packet of rolling papers, and a small gold lighter. He began to construct what looked like a giant joint.

  “What . . . What is that?” Gracie sputtered. “What are you doing?”

  Rob looked up at her with eyes that still sparked, back down at the makings in his hands, then back up at her again. “Rolling a fag,” he said. He expertly licked the paper and sealed it.

  Her mind groped for the British to American English translation. A fag. A fag. Oh, a cigarette. Words galloped out of her mouth before she could rein them in. “You’re not smoking that in here.”

  “Why not?”

  “You are not lighting up within a hundred yards of this sleeping bag. This is an eight-hundred-fill down minus-twenty-degree bag with dual draft tubes, welded baffle construction, and laminated, double external zipper flaps.”

  “What the—”

  “It’s the highest-tech sleeping bag money can buy,” Gracie cut in. “Or at least that I could afford. I sold my little sister into slavery for that bag and don’t want it peppered with little ash holes.” She heard what she had just said and fought the smile that tugged at her mouth. “Besides those things will kill you.”

  “What are you, my mum?”

  “And another besides, I don’t want to be breathing in your secondhand smoke. You are not smoking in here.”

  “Bloody hell, woman!”

  The two glared at each other until Rob stuffed the cigarette makings back into his pocket. “Puffed up like a green bronc on a cold morning,” he mumbled.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing. It means bloody nothing.” He unzipped his sleeping bag. “I’m going outside.”

  CHAPTER

  42

  ROB sat on a boulder outside the shelter, smoking in silence.

  Gracie stood leaning against another boulder about twenty feet away, feeling remorseful.

  The fact that Rob was a celebrity meant nothing to her. What did matter was that he wasn’t deserving of the accusations she had made, or the manner in which she had made them. Common courtesy alone dictated she apologize. Not to mention that they were stuck armpit-to-armpit in a tiny shelter for an indeterminate amount of time.

  Crap.

  Gracie pushed herself off the rock. With feet that felt like wet cement, she crossed over to where Rob sat and slid onto the rock next to him.

  His eyes glided over to her, then away. Out in the chilled air, he was back to looking rosy-cheeked again.

  And gorgeous. Crap.

  Rob took another drag off the cigarette.

  The fine smell of cloves filled Gracie’s nostrils. “I’d like to apologize,” she said.

  Rob blew out the smoke.

  “I was out of line,” Gracie said, fiddling with the zipper pull of her jacket. “About the drinking and all that.”

  Still nothing.

  “I could have been more diplomatic. It’s just that . . . It’s just I hate, no, loathe being stuck . . .” When Rob was still silent, she leaned over to look in his face. “Hellooooo?”

  Rob looked back at her. “What?”

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yes.”

  Her exhaled breath exploded into the moist air. “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “I’m apologizing and you’re being a shit.”

  “How am I being a shit?”

  “Because I said I wanted to apologize, which, by the way, is really hard for me because it means I was wrong and I hate being wrong and I’m trying to apologize and you’re ignoring me.”

  “I’m not ignoring you. I’m waiting.”

  “For what?”

  “For you to apologize,” Rob said. “You said you wanted to apologize. So apologize. Saying you want to and actually doing it are two entirely different things.”

  Gracie detected the hint of a smile on his lips. He covered it up by taking another drag from the cigarette. “It’s true,” he said shrugging, blowing out the smoke.

/>   “I’m sorry! Okay? Satisfied?”

  “Apology accepted,” he said.

  With approval, Gracie watched Rob flick the glowing end of his cigarette onto the rock, shred the unburned contents into the air, and stash what little paper was left into this pocket.

  After several seconds of silence, she said, “I’m trying to figure out what happened to you. And the others. Can you tell me exactly what you remember from the time you left the trail? Whatever you haven’t already told me?”

  Rob pushed himself farther back on the boulder so his injured foot stuck out in front of him. He described how, after the lunch, the next thing he remembered—with any clarity he emphasized—was lying on his side on the steep incline, not knowing for how long he had been unconscious, where he was or why he was there, and with his head and ankle hurting “like bloody hell.” Disoriented, he had yelled for a bit. When no one came, he tried to climb back up the hill, but it was so steep and the ground so soft he kept sliding back down. “A bit tough with a dodgy ankle. And I felt like shit.” He tried his cell phone. No reception. By that time he was shivering and couldn’t stop. He hobbled and slid the rest of the way down to the creek, then stumbled and fell in the water trying to cross to the other side where, for some reason, he thought it might be warmer.

  Gracie absorbed what he told her, then asked, “What can you tell me about Tristan? I have a physical description, but what about his character? What kind of person is he?”