by Kathi Daley
After Jake handled the introductions, he handed the meeting over to Houston, who opened by giving an overview of the current situation.
“I wish I could say we have a solid suspect, but all we have is a list of people of interest. The list started out with more than twenty men I researched and interviewed. There are only three left. I’m the new guy in town, so I’m depending on those of you who’ve lived here for a while and know the men to help me whittle things down even more.”
“Who do you still have?” Larry asked.
“We have reason to believe the person behind these incidents was also here thirteen years ago. We don’t know if he’s been living in Rescue continuously since then or if he was here then, left, and has since returned. One of our suspects is a long-term resident, Paul Gentry.”
Houston paused and let the name sit. I could tell by the looks on the faces of the men around the table that the idea of Paul as the killer was being met with a variety of responses. Finally Donny spoke. “Why Paul? Not that he isn’t ornery, but out of all the people who live in this town, why Paul?”
“He made it to the list for several reasons. We believe the killer was here at the time of a rescue operation thirteen years ago; Paul has lived here much longer than that. We’re looking at individuals who were involved in rescues, and when Paul was a teen, he went hiking with Trace Colton. The weather turned bad, the boys became disoriented in the snow, and Trace fell. He was hurt pretty bad. Paul tried to help him, but Trace was gone by the time the rescue team got to him. All of these things in and of themselves don’t indicate guilt. Paul is still on the list because I haven’t been able to track him down to verify his alibi.”
“Paul hunts in the fall,” Carl said.
“So I’ve been told,” Houston said. “I don’t suppose you know how I can reach him?”
Carl shook his head.
“Anyone else?” Houston asked. No one spoke up.
“Surely he isn’t the only man you suspect,” Larry said.
“No, there are two others, although by the end of this meeting I hope to increase that number.” Houston took out a photo of a man. He held it up for all to see. “This is Walter Ryan. He’s thirty-two years old. When he was nineteen he went backcountry skiing on the mountain with five other guys from his college fraternity. They weren’t from this area and hadn’t taken proper precautions for their trip. By the time the rescue team was able to reach them, three of the six men were dead. Of the three survivors, I managed to track down two. Neither have been in Alaska during the past week, so I’ve cleared them. Ryan, however, seems to be in the wind. At the time of the incident he suffered a mental breakdown. When the rescuers reached him, he insisted there’d been a seventh man named Zane, and he’d been bitten by zombies. The other two survivors insisted there’d only been six of them on the mountain, that Walter had clearly lost his mind. In addition to losing his mind, he lost a hand to frost bite.”
“Quite tragic, but again, why do you think he would come back to Rescue after all this time and start killing people?” Larry asked.
“I don’t know that he would do that, but I’d like to speak to him. I’m showing you his photo so you can keep an eye out for him. If you see someone you believe could be this man, call me, but don’t approach him. If he is the killer, we don’t want to tip him off.”
“You said you had three suspects?” Sarge asked.
Houston nodded. “The third man was brought to my attention by one of the men I interviewed. He’s a longtime resident named Vern Cribbage. He survived a wildfire thirteen years ago that claimed the lives of three adults and five children. While there were survivors, Vern stood out because he seemed to have suffered the greatest degree of long-term emotional damage.”
“Are you talking about that guy who lives in the shack down by the river?” Frank asked.
Houston nodded.
“The guy’s a wacko,” Frank agreed. “As far as I know, he lives totally off the grid. He gets water from the river and eats what he hunts. He’s never had a job, never gotten married, and, as far as I know, has never even had any friends.”
“He wears a hoodie whenever he goes out, so I’ve never gotten a good look at him, but I heard his face is messed up,” Donny said. “He was burned trying to save one of the other kids who was in that fire.”
“Seems he’d be easy to track down,” Dani pointed out.
“Seems like it, but I’ve been by his place twice and there hasn’t been a sign of him. Of course, that could just mean that, like Paul Gentry, he was off hunting. I plan to stop by his place later in the evening, but for now, he’s suspect number three.”
I considered the list as it currently stood. Paul Gentry, Walter Ryan, and Vern Cribbage all seemed like men with backgrounds that could lead to the kind of deeply buried pain I’d experienced on the mountain the night Austin died. “How old was Vern Cribbage at the time of the fire?” I asked.
“Sixteen,” Houston answered.
I supposed that was old enough for him to have been up on the mountain with Val when she died. Walter Ryan was nineteen, Paul Gentry around fifteen or sixteen. Yes, I thought, any one of the three could be the killer.
“I’d like to use the rest of this meeting to accomplish two things,” Houston continued. “To come up with a protocol that can be used for any rescue or fire calls we might receive in the near future and to work together to expand my suspect list.”
“I already told you, the volunteer fire department is disbanded until this lunatic is caught,” Larry said. “I feel bad for anyone who has a legitimate fire, but there isn’t one man on our squad who’s willing to risk his life to save a building.”
“What if someone is trapped inside a burning building?” Sarge asked.
Larry bowed his head. “Like I said, I’m sorry for those folks, but I have a wife and three kids. I need to think of my family first. The others feel the same way.”
I saw Jake and Houston make eye contact. It seemed to me they were agreeing to let the subject go for now. Houston walked over to the whiteboard and suggested we work together to come up with at least ten additional names of men who might have the means and motivation to do what had been done in this small Alaskan town over the past few days.
Chapter 9
Jake asked the members of the search-and-rescue team to stay behind after the representatives from the police and volunteer fire departments left. Houston was going to work on clearing the names from the new list that had been generated, but if you asked me, none of the people who’d been added to the list were as strong as the three he already had.
“This is bad,” Jordan said.
“The town needs a fire department,” Dani agreed.
“You can’t really blame the guys who volunteer their time putting out fires for not wanting to put themselves at risk,” Sarge said.
“We need to find this man and find him quick,” Jake asserted.
Landon sat back in his chair studying the whiteboard. “I think it might be up to us to solve this thing. I didn’t sense a huge commitment from either Houston’s men or the volunteer firefighters. In fact, they all seemed to want to distance themselves from the situation.”
“Houston will do what needs to be done,” I said. “We can count on him.”
“We need to dig deeper into these old rescues,” Jake said.
Jordan stood up. “You know you can count on me to help, but I need to get back to the hospital.” She glanced at Jake. “I’ll come back after my shift.”
Jake nodded.
Dani stood as well. “As much as I hate to bail, I have a charter, and for some annoying reason, the power company seems to think it’s about time I pay my already overdue bill.”
“Totally understandable,” Jake said. “Check in later and I’ll give you an update.”
I looked at Jake, Landon, and Sarge. “I guess it’s up to us.”
Sarge stood as well. “I have a doctor’s appointment I’ve already put off twice. I
shouldn’t be long; a couple of hours at the most. I’ll check in when I’m done.”
And then there were three.
“So, what now?” I asked.
Landon took out his laptop from his backpack. “We have data, and much of it seems relevant. We just need to dig a little deeper. We need to sort and categorize what we find and start to develop a profile.”
Seemed like a Landon thing to do, so I glanced at Jake. I couldn’t help but notice he was frowning, and I wondered what was on his mind. I was about to ask him when he slid the photo Houston had brought of Walter Ryan in front of me. I lifted a brow.
“During a rescue, you usually begin by studying a photo in association with a name. Do you think that would work in this case?”
I pulled back a bit. “You want me to try to connect with the killer?”
“You’ve done it before. We have three names. We can get photos of the other two because they’re locals, or it might be enough for you to conjure up their images. Do you think if you take some time to really focus in, you’ll begin to pick up something? We only need a glimmer. A small spark of recognition to point us in a direction.”
Landon looked up from the computer. “I don’t know, Jake. It seems like a lot to ask. I want to find this guy as much as anyone, but I don’t want to send Harmony over the edge in the process. I can’t even imagine the sort of thing that must be floating around in this guy’s head.”
Jake took my hand. He looked directly at me. “I don’t disagree with Landon, but this guy has killed two men and put four others in the hospital. He’s totally disrupted everyday life in our town, and if that isn’t enough, he seems to be hyper focused on you. We need to figure out who we’re dealing with.”
“None of these three fit the description Serena gave Houston of the man who dropped off the first photo,” I said. “Maybe we’re dealing with someone else entirely.”
“Maybe,” Jake acknowledged. “But we’ve discussed the fact that the man who dropped off the photo could just have been a courier.”
I picked up the one suspect photo we had. “I don’t think this will work. My gift is meant to save those in need of rescue.”
“The man you connected with on the mountain,” Jake said. “Did he seem like he needed to be rescued?”
“Physically, no. Mentally and emotionally, more than anyone I’ve ever connected with. That man is living with some serious pain.”
“Paul Gentry watched his best friend die. Walter Ryan was so damaged by his experience, he suffered a psychic break. Vern Cribbage was burned in a fire that killed eight people in his group. Is it your opinion that any of these men could be suffering the depth of pain you felt that night on the mountain?”
I took a breath and let it out slowly. “I would assume any of the three experiences had the potential to cause the depth of pain the man I connected to felt as he waited for the rescue team to approach. I’m not sure what makes one person channel their pain into altruistic endeavors while another with a similar trauma turns into a cold-blooded killer. But yeah, on the surface it could be any of the three.”
“So will you work on it?” Jake asked. “I’m not transferring any responsibility for finding this guy to you and I don’t expect you to solve this on your own, but will you try to make a connection and see how it goes?”
I nodded. “I’ll work on it when I get home, but I’m going to warn you right now, you shouldn’t expect much.”
“No pressure. I promise.” Jake looked at Landon. “In the meantime, let’s go through everything again. I want to reread the incident reports of all three of those rescues. I want you to pull any news articles that may have been written at the time. And pull any police reports that might in any way be relevant. We need to narrow this down as much as we can. Hopefully, Houston will catch up with all three men today.”
“If Walter Ryan is in town, he must be staying somewhere,” Landon said. “There aren’t a lot of lodging properties open in the off-season. I’ll scan the photo we have and send out some e-mail inquiries. Then I’ll do a general search for news items relating to the three men.”
Jake and I settled in and began going over the original handwritten incident reports line by line.
In the case of Paul Gentry, he and Trace Colton had gone hiking. An early storm blew in, and the boys became disoriented. Trace fell and was injured, which prevented him from walking out. Paul stayed with him until the rescue team arrived. Unfortunately, Trace died before they got to him. I was certain the incident must have been extremely traumatic for a teenage boy, but it didn’t seem nearly as traumatic as some of the other rescues we’d been involved with over the years. What it came down to even more than the degree of trauma, though, was the ability of the person to deal with it. Paul was a bit of a loner. He had a few casual drinking buddies, but he’d never married or had a family. He worked several jobs he pieced together to make ends meet, which could demonstrate a lack of focus, but in my opinion, holding multiple jobs was just a result of living in Rescue, where good-paying year-round jobs were almost nonexistent. The fact that Paul’s neighbors hadn’t seen him for a few days might seem relevant, but it was hunting season, and he liked to hunt. Chances were, he was just off foraging for meat for his freezer.
I knew Paul casually. I wouldn’t call us friends exactly, but he came into the bar from time to time, and while he was quiet, he certainly never gave off a psycho killer vibe. Of the three men, my guess was that he was the least likely suspect. I tried to remember the voice on the phone warning me about the fire at the lumber mill. It was garbled and didn’t seem familiar, and I didn’t think it was Paul I was speaking to.
The person I knew second best was Vern Cribbage. I remembered the incident he was involved in quite well, however. It had been a huge deal that affected everyone in Rescue: a church group going hiking in the canyon during a hot stretch of summer when a fire broke out and trapped them. The kids, between the ages of ten and twelve, were all locals. Suddenly, I remembered Vern was sixteen then, like me, and wondered how he fit in.
“Vern was sixteen at the time of the fire,” I said aloud.
“Yeah, that sounds right,” Jake said.
“The report says the church group consisted of four adults and twelve children between the ages of ten and twelve. Vern was neither an adult nor a child, so how did he fit in?”
Jake frowned. “I don’t know. Let me check the list provided by the church.” He dug into a file and pulled out a single sheet of paper. His frown increased as he read it. “Vern’s name isn’t on it.”
“Are we sure the burns on his face came from that fire?” I asked.
Jake looked through the file again. “He might not have been on the original list provided by the church, but I remember seeing it somewhere.”
I tried to bring Vern’s face to mind, before it had been damaged by the fire. It seemed like such a long time ago, but I did have a memory of him. “Vern went to high school with me. I wouldn’t say we were close, but I knew him. He was sort of a troublemaker and a screwup. It doesn’t make sense that he was part of a church group, yet he definitely has scars on his face from what had to have been some pretty major burns, and he’s turned into a total recluse, which fits the idea of extreme trauma.”
Jake took another piece of paper from the file. “Here we go. A list of those rescued from the fire: Jim Teton, the only adult who made it out, seven kids, and Vern.”
I sat back in my chair. “Weird that he wasn’t on the original list provided by the church.”
Jake nodded. “Very weird.”
“I’m sure Vern never returned to school after the fire,” I mused. “Of course, he would have been in the hospital for a good long time afterward, so he might have finished his education in a homeschool situation, if he finished at all. His parents no longer live in Rescue. Do you remember when they moved?”
Jake shook his head. “I have no idea.”
“I’ll see if I can find out,” Landon said.
I watched as his fingers flew over the keyboard. His eyes narrowed as he concentrated on the task before him.
“The Cribbage family left Rescue shortly after the fire,” Landon informed us. “According to the article I found, Vern was transferred to a burn unit at a hospital in Seattle. His parents left Rescue and went there to be with him. It appears a relative came to Rescue to pack up their belongings. As far as I can tell, they never returned.”
“So Vern must have moved back on his own at some point after that. Do we know when?” I asked.
Landon took several minutes to do a search with no results. I was pretty sure the shack Vern lived in was built on the river illegally, so there wouldn’t be a record of it. I doubted he’d moved back right away. He would still have been a minor when Val died, so it was unlikely he came back on his own then. “The fire occurred in July. Val died in December. Do we know Vern’s whereabouts that day?”
“I suppose he would be living wherever his parents moved after he got out of the hospital,” Jake said. He turned to Landon. “Do we know where the parents ended up after Vern was released from the hospital?”
“I’ll see what I can find,” Landon said, and he began to type again.
I stood up. “I’m going to head over to Vern’s shack. I have a feeling he might be there, and I think he might talk to me. All this research is well and good, but it seems that with the guy right here in town, it might be best to get our answers directly from the horse’s mouth.”
“You aren’t going anywhere alone,” Jake said in a fatherly tone of voice that left little room for argument.
“I’ll take Yukon,” I responded.
“You’ll take me,” Jake insisted.
I drew a deep breath. “You can be intimidating. We want this guy to be comfortable enough to tell us what he knows. I’ll take Landon.”
