Mountain Rampage

by Graham, Scott

  Chuck looked across the top of the flatbed. Jake and Parker still crouched behind Nicoleta’s car. Keeping his eyes on the two men, Chuck gave the handle inset beneath the lid of the toolbox a stiff pull. The handle was locked. It didn’t move. He yanked upward on the lid, but it held fast, too.

  His fingertips came away from the toolbox covered with dry, black flakes. He put his fingers to his nose and sniffed. Nothing. He studied the toolbox. More of the flaky material, rough and textured in contrast to the box’s smooth, shiny black paint, clung to the front wall of the steel box just below the lid.

  Jake rose from the back of Nicoleta’s car and made his way along the driver’s side of the wrecker. Chuck stepped backward with a good-natured wave. He angled across the parking lot to a metal trash can next to the sidewalk. Using the body of the van as a shield between the trash can and Jake and Parker, Chuck retrieved one of the students’ discarded sack-lunch bags he’d gathered while cleaning out the van. He rummaged inside the brown paper bag until his fingers closed around an empty sandwich bag. He folded the small plastic bag into the palm of his hand and hurried back around the van as Jake maneuvered the wrecker, its reverse signal beeping, until its tail end nearly touched the rear of the sedan.

  Leaving the engine running, Jake climbed down from the driver’s seat and worked a set of controls behind the cab, tilting the flatbed to the ground with a loud grinding noise. When he’d seated the end of the flatbed on the gravel behind Nicoleta’s sedan, he slid beneath the car to attach chains from the wrecker to its frame.

  While Jake lay beneath the sedan and Parker looked on, Chuck rounded the far side of the truck and crouched beside the black metal toolbox. He held the lip of the open sandwich bag to the side of the box and scraped with his fingernails at the black material. Tiny flakes fell from the metal box into the clear plastic bag. When he held up the bag, however, he found he had far less than he needed.

  He put the open bag back to the toolbox and scraped harder. Even so, little of the black material fell from the box into the baggie. He slid a credit card from his wallet and used it to scrape at the side of the toolbox. The plastic card bent as he worked it back and forth, but the material still clung to the metal. Growing desperate, he eyed the parking lot, spotting small bits of broken glass and a discarded beer-bottle cap, flattened into the gravel by passing vehicles.

  He grabbed the bottle cap and used it to scrape at the toolbox, counting on the idling engine and Jake’s work with the chains to cover the noise he made. This time, sizeable flakes of the black material cascaded into the sandwich bag.

  Chuck crouched to peer beneath the flatbed in time to see Jake wriggling out from under the sedan. Parker extended a hand and pulled the wrecker owner to his feet. Chuck sealed the plastic bag, stowed it in his pocket, and made his way back around the front of the truck to the two men, calming his breathing as he approached.

  Across the parking lot, Clarence reemerged from Raven House and stood glaring at Jake.

  Chuck caught Parker’s eye. “I take it Hemphill gave you his okay?”

  The resort manager nodded. “As long as we don’t tamper with the inside.”

  Jake announced, “Its brakes are set. We’ll have to drag it up onto the bed.”

  Chuck asked him, “Been doing this a long time?”

  “Too long. Can’t say as I ever towed a murder victim’s car, though.” Jake turned to Parker. “I heard lots of people liked her.”

  “She liked lots of people,” Parker said. “That might be a better way to put it.”

  “Hormones,” Chuck commented.

  Jake spat on the ground. “Tell me about it. I got a couple of girls in college. Private schools, expensive as all get out. They’re good girls, mind you. But I swear, the things they tell their mother, it’s enough to turn me three shades of green.” He waggled his hands over his ears. “I’ve got to the point now where I don’t even listen. I just write the checks and stay out of it all.”

  “You have to tow a lot of cars to put two kids through college,” Chuck observed, keeping his tone light. “Especially private schools.”

  The wrecker owner dipped his head in agreement. “Seven days a week, all summer, every summer.”

  “I’ve got two daughters of my own. Youngsters. But I’m already dreading the tuition payments.”

  “You just gotta make sure they don’t do too good in school,” Jake said. “My wife, she pushed my girls hard. Straight A’s for the both of them, which gave them these ideas of how they had to go way far away to these fancy schools back east.” He popped his tongue off the roof of his mouth. “Me, I’m just along for the ride.”

  “Bad grades,” Chuck said with a definitive nod. “Got it. Maybe I can even convince my girls to drop out before they finish high school.”

  Jake’s face cracked into a tight-lipped smile. “There’s your ticket.” He made his way to the control station at the side of the truck, put his leather-gloved hands to the levers, and called to Parker, standing beside the sedan, “Holler if she starts sliding off line, would you?”

  Jake depressed a metal handle, engaging the winch with an angry whine. Chuck put his fingers to his ears and backed away. He crossed the parking lot and stopped on the far side of the van, where Clarence joined him.

  “Learn anything?” Clarence asked.

  “The tire treads on the wrecker match the ones in the pullout—same as half the truck tires sold in America over the last five years. As for his boots, I haven’t gotten a good look yet.” Chuck pulled the sandwich bag from his pocket and displayed the dry, black flecks nestled at its bottom. “But I’ve got this.”

  He and Clarence went around to the back of Raven House, out of sight of the parking lot. Chuck dribbled a few drops of water from an outside spigot into the sandwich bag and worked the bottom of the bag between his thumb and forefinger until the flakes dissolved in the water. He raised the bag. The solution in it was bright pink, almost red.

  FORTY-TWO

  Chuck opened the bag and sniffed at the few drops of solution inside. He held the bag out to Clarence, who took a noseful.

  “Anything?” Chuck asked.

  Clarence shook his head.

  “Me neither. I was hoping for the scent of something, maybe the sheep carcasses, from the meadow.”

  “Doesn’t matter though, does it?” Clarence pointed at the bag. “It’s blood, from the wrecker, verdad?”

  Chuck nodded. “It was smeared and dried on the side of a toolbox behind the driver’s compartment.”

  Clarence’s eyes glowed with grim satisfaction. “You’ve got him, then.”

  “But what do I do with him?”

  “Tell the rangers. Show them what you found.”

  “He’ll just deny everything. He’s a local. He’ll get off, no question.”

  “He won’t dare do any more killing, though.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “You could confront him.”

  “Like in the movies?”

  “Ask him some questions. You’ll see it in his eyes.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then you can—” Clarence stopped as the loud whine of the winch and clanking noise of the flatbed lowering into place ended. Seconds later, the wrecker door slammed.

  Chuck and Clarence poked their heads around the corner of Raven House and watched as Jake fired up the engine and rumbled away with Nicoleta’s sedan atop the flatbed.

  “Too late,” Clarence said.

  Over the next forty-five minutes, Chuck made his way from room to room along the first-floor hallway in Raven House, checking in with the students as they packed. Despite—or perhaps, in some odd way, because of—Nicoleta’s murder, the students rode a wave of energy, flitting from room to room and hurrying up and down the stairs and in and out of the bathrooms at the end of each hall.

  Only a few of the students planned to travel back to Durango in the van the next morning. The rest, driving their own cars or having arranged r
ides from Estes Park, would spend the two weeks between the end of the field school and the start of the fall semester with family or friends.

  Sheila came down the hall carrying a cardboard box.

  “Are you going back in the van tomorrow?” Chuck asked her.

  “Yes. Then on home from there for my healing ceremony.”

  “Your what?”

  “My grandfather is a hatáli, a medicine man, from Two Gray Hills,” she said, naming the Navajo reservation district on the Arizona-New Mexico border famous for its intricately woven rugs.

  “Let me guess—if your grandfather is a medicine man, your grandmother must be a weaver.”

  Sheila’s broad face broke into a smile. She tossed her long, silky, black hair over her shoulder. “Yep. Dezba Natani. A couple of galleries in Durango carry her rugs. Have you seen them?”

  “Afraid not. I’ll have to check them out.” He looked her over. “You come by your belief in skinwalkers honestly, don’t you?”

  “Of course.” She grew serious. “My grandfather does my cleansing every summer, before school starts. He’s been doing it for me since I was little. But now, after…” She left a space where Nicoleta’s name should have been. “I really need it.”

  “Your morning walks up the hill aren’t enough?”

  “They’ve helped me make it through the summer. There’s a flat spot up there with a break in the trees where I can see all the way across the valley. But I haven’t gone back up there since…since…”

  Chuck steered the conversation away from Nicoleta’s murder. “Healing ceremonies involve sweat lodges, right?”

  “Only for the men. Mine just has a lot of chanting and incense burning and waving eagle feathers around. It’s kind of goofy, but it works. Gets me ready for the school year.”

  Chuck smiled. “Sounds fun. Maybe he’d do one for me, too.”

  “He would, you know. He does lots of them for bilagáana—for white people, I mean.”

  Chuck stepped aside to let her pass. “I want you to know how much I’ve appreciated having you in the course this summer.”

  “It’s been good,” she said. “I mean,” she hedged as she headed down the hall, “it’s been better than I expected.”

  Chuck climbed the rear stairs to the second floor. Bits of conversation came from an open doorway as he walked down the hall.

  “Yes,” said a young woman’s voice. “Gold. Seriously. That’s what he said.”

  “The whole summer? You’re telling me we’ve been—” The second voice, that of another member of Team Paydirt, cut off as Chuck passed the doorway. He kept moving, pretending he hadn’t heard anything, and strode straight to Clarence’s room.

  The door was open. Clarence lay sprawled on his back on his unmade single bed, his eyes closed, a travel mug, its spill-proof lid snapped into place, balanced on his chest with both hands.

  “Clarence,” Chuck snapped. “What’s it been, less than an hour?”

  Clarence sat up, his eyes unfocused. Chuck closed the door behind him, crossed the room, and sniffed the mug. Tequila.

  “What did I tell you last night at the cabin?” Chuck demanded.

  Clarence squeezed the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “Just a little, jefe. To help me relax.”

  “The last thing you need to do right now is relax. Don’t you get it? We’ll be out of here tomorrow—as long as we keep ourselves together. Just one more night, Clarence.”

  “One more night of wondering if I’m gonna be locked away for the rest of my life.”

  Chuck glared at him. “You told everybody about the gold.”

  “Just Samuel. You didn’t say I couldn’t.”

  “He already told everyone else.”

  Clarence shrugged. “So what? You said it was going to be big news. Didn’t seem like it was a secret or anything.”

  Chuck ripped the mug from Clarence’s hand. “Give me that.” He looked around the room. “Where’s the bottle?”

  Clarence’s eyes grew steely. Then, in sullen defeat, he jutted his chin at his desk on the opposite side of the small room.

  Chuck opened the desk drawers one at a time until, in the bottom drawer, he came upon a quart bottle of Cuervo Gold sloshing with tequila. “It’s like I’m your babysitter,” he grumbled.

  He grabbed the bottle by its neck, shoved the drawer closed with his foot, and wheeled on Clarence. “I’m sure you’ve got more booze around here somewhere. Don’t touch it, you hear me?”

  Kirina poked her head out of her room when Chuck passed on his way down the hall, headed for the dumpster out back with Clarence’s mug and bottle.

  “Let’s talk,” she said, waving him into her room and closing the door behind him. Half-filled duffle bags covered the linoleum floor. A stuffed backpack leaned against her bed.

  “Is it true, about the mine?” she asked.

  He ignored her question and held up Clarence’s bottle. “Did you know about this?”

  She looked away.

  “Of course, you did.” He eyed the side of her face. “But you told me how much you like him, didn’t you? Far be it for you to get him in any trouble.” He paused. “And, yes, it’s true.”

  She turned back to him. “I heard it looks like dirt, but that it’s really gold.”

  “Ten percent of it is. Or so I’m told. Not that it’ll do anyone any good. It’s park property. I’ll let them know about it after everyone leaves tomorrow morning.”

  Kirina whistled. “Who’d’ve thought?”

  After tossing the tequila in the trash, Chuck walked across the fields, headed for the conference center. His phone dinged with a text from Janelle.

  Hard to get much done with the girls. You coming?

  Back soon, Chuck texted back. Stopping to see Parker first.

  “Saw you headed this way,” the resort manager said after Chuck knocked on Parker’s office door and entered.

  Chuck looked out the picture window. In the distance, the afternoon sun flashed off the windows of Estes Park’s downtown buildings. He took a seat in front of the desk. “All you ever do is creep on people.”

  “Moving my office up here was the best idea I ever had. I don’t miss much.”

  “Except Nicoleta’s murder.”

  “Which is why I’m spending even more time looking out my window now.” He shook his head. “I can’t wait for tomorrow to be over.”

  “Hemphill’s what all of us are waiting on. I haven’t heard a thing from him today, have you?”

  “He didn’t have much to say when I talked to him about moving Nicoleta’s car. Maybe he’s getting ready to pounce. That’s what I’m hoping, anyway.”

  “He has to wait for the lab reports, the autopsy, all that. Could be a while.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. She was knifed, or maybe garroted or whatever they call it, that’s obvious enough. And the killer took whatever he used with him. What else is there to study?”

  “For one thing, what the victim was doing before she was killed. I’m sure Hemphill will want to know if she slept with anybody in the hours leading up to her death.”

  “Ohhhh.”

  “If the autopsy turns up anything, I think you…we…can count on lots of DNA requests.”

  “Both dorms?”

  “I expect so.”

  Parker made no effort to hide his disgust. “Kids today. I swear.”

  “This from the guy who chased after every girl in Durango 24/7.”

  “That was different. I never caught any.”

  “Your failure makes you hate others’ success?”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Parker leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. “Look who you showed up with this summer. Give me a break, buddy.”

  “Janelle?”

  “Yes, Janelle. She’s the talk of the town.” Parker’s eyes grew bright. “Or of the hospital, anyway.”

  Chuck sat forward. “Wh
at’s that supposed to mean?”

  The resort manager jerked a thumb toward the window behind him. “The new ER doc.”

  “You saw him?”

  “He drove right by. His SUV is hard to miss.”

  “He made a house call. He was checking up on Rosie.”

  “While you were away.”

  “He was there when I came back. There was nothing going on.”

  “Of course there wasn’t,” Parker said.

  FORTY-THREE

  Chuck kicked a piece of gravel out of his path as he made his way up the driveway to the cabin. The afternoon sun sliced through the trees. Insects buzzed in the ponderosas growing close on both sides of the two-track.

  What would happen, he asked himself, when he revealed what he’d learned about the gold in the mine and turned over the skull to park officials? No doubt they would get in touch with the Estes Park Police Department, Officer Hemphill included.

  Chuck shook his head. He was too tired to care what Hemphill might do at that point.

  But what about Jake and the dead rams? Exhausted though Chuck was, anger flared in him.

  He knew how things would go after he made his report: Jake was bound to hear what was up, and he would ditch any evidence that could be used against him. He would get off, at best, with a warning—and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, Chuck could do about it.

  He cursed as he walked on up the drive to the cabin. Tracking the drag path to the fen, finding the tire tracks and boot prints, gathering the flakes of dried blood from the side of the toolbox within feet of Jake—all for nothing.

  At the sound of his footsteps on the deck stairs, Rosie ran out the front door and dove into Chuck’s arms. His heart warmed as he pulled her to him.

  “Preciosa mia,” he whispered in her ear.

  Rosie giggled. “Preciosa mia tambien,” she whispered back.