Finding Christmas

by Kathi Daley

  I laughed. “Very good. That’s exactly what I’d planned. So how about it? Just for a few days, until I can find someone to foster him.”

  “I thought the whole reason you wanted to open this shelter was to house the local animals that have been abandoned.”

  “It is,” I replied. “And you know how much I and everyone value your contribution. But this little guy is just a baby. He needs training and attention. He would be better off in a home.”

  Harley hesitated.

  “But if you’re too busy, I guess I can ask Wyatt, or maybe Landon. Neither would be as good with him as you, but beggars can’t be choosers.” I sighed in such a way as to indicate the situation was a lot direr than it was.

  He let out a long breath. “Okay, fine. But just for a few days. I can’t have a dog on a permanent basis. I travel all the time. It wouldn’t be practical.”

  “I know. And a few days will help a lot.” I stood on tiptoe and kissed Harley on the cheek. “Let’s go inside. I’ll see if I can find a collar and a leash, and then we’ll head to the pet store.”

  “Pet store?”

  “The pup is going to need things. Food. A bed. Some toys and grooming supplies. You know, all the standard stuff. Oh, and a name. We can’t keep calling him the pup.”

  “I’m not naming him.”

  I shrugged. “Okay, I will. How about Rudolph?”

  Harley raised a brow. “Rudolph?”

  “It’s almost Christmas, and the man did say he lived up north. Rudolph seems like an appropriate name for a Christmas puppy from up north.”

  Harley held out the pup and took a closer look. “He’s going to be a big dog. And I can already tell he’s smart. He needs a name with some dignity. How about Brando?”

  I smiled. It looked like Brando had found a new daddy, whether Harley knew it or not.

  Chapter 3

  Harley, Brando, and I had just returned from the pet store when I got a call from Jake, letting me know we had another rescue. It was going to be dark in a few hours, so time was of the essence. I quickly went over a few things with Harley, including the use of the large dog crate we’d purchased and the basic theory behind training a smart and energetic puppy, and headed out after promising to check back in with him that evening. Jake had indicated the man we were going to be looking for was a member of fellow S&R member Dani Mathew’s heli-skiing party, and with the depth of the snow on the mountain, the dogs wouldn’t be utilized for this rescue. I drove to the airport, where I found Jake, Wyatt, Landon, and Houston all waiting for Dani to arrive.

  “What’s the situation?” I asked, after greeting everyone.

  “Dani called me just before I called you. She informed me that she had taken six men up the mountain for the ski trip, but only five showed up at the rendezvous point. It’s starting to snow up there, so time is of the essence if we’re going to have a chance of finding the sixth skier alive. She’s on her way back with the five men. Wyatt, Landon, and I will go back up with Dani. Harmony can head to the inn with Houston and the men.” Jake looked at me. “It will be important to make a connection. Get a photo. Talk to the five. Do whatever you can to get what we need.”

  I nodded. “I’ll try.”

  “The men were dressed for a day on the mountain, which will buy us some time,” Jake added. “But with the early sunset, we don’t have a lot of daylight left. We need to know where to search.”

  I looked up as the chopper came into view. It looked so small against the dark and brooding sky. I watched as it got closer, stirring the air around us. I imagined the wind up on the mountain was fierce.

  After Jake and the others left, Houston and I accompanied the five men to the inn. When Dani had dropped them off, she’d given Houston a heads-up that something seemed strange to her. Houston wanted to speak to the men individually, but first, he wanted me to have a chance to connect with the one who was missing, so he sent the others into the kitchen for coffee and a snack while I pulled up the photo Dani had taken of the whole group before they headed down the mountain, and focused on the thin man with dark hair and a narrow face.

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. All the men looked happy as they posed for the photo. They were laughing, with their arms around one another before preparing their descent. It took an expert skier to handle the mountain, which had steep drop-offs as well as gently curving runs established by others who’d tackled it in the days since the last heavy snow.

  I tried to bring an image of the man into my mind. I knew his name was Piney Portman, and that he was an attorney and a decent skier. Jake had established those facts when he first spoke to Dani. I also knew all the men in the group had been childhood friends who vacationed together on fairly a regular basis. I opened my eyes and looked at the photo again. I wasn’t getting anything. It seemed by now Portman must be aware he was in a dangerous situation. I assumed he’d be frightened. I was usually able to pick up on the frightened. Unless he was already dead; then I wouldn’t be able to make a connection at all. I was about to give up and go into the kitchen to question the men when I had a brief flash. I looked around the room. The flash wasn’t a connection to the man we were hoping to rescue but to someone else in the inn. My ability to connect with individuals I wasn’t tasked to find was a new development I’d yet learned to channel. As it had been in the past, the image in my mind was nothing more than a flash that was gone almost before it appeared.

  I picked up my radio, then took it on to the front porch, where I wouldn’t be overheard. “Harmony to Dani.”

  “Go for Dani,” she responded from the radio in her chopper.

  “I wasn’t able to connect with the victim. I think he’s dead. I had a flash, like the flash of a memory I picked up from Zane Hudson.” I referred to the man who’d killed several people, including a member of our team in October.

  “What did you see?” Dani asked.

  “Portman is lying on a ridge.” I paused, trying to remember. “I’m pretty sure it’s the ridge that’s off to the left after you come out of Snake Canyon.”

  “I’ll let the others know to look there,” Dani said. “You said you picked up a memory. Does that mean one of the men in the ski party knows what became of his friend?”

  “I think that’s what it means. This ability to pick up images from individuals other than the victim is new and I haven’t figured it all out yet, but it seems as if the memory I piggybacked on to must have been from one of the others who were with him. I need to figure out which friend it came from.”

  I signed off with Dani and went inside, then pulled Houston aside. I explained what had occurred and he decided to speak to each man individually, starting with Drake Weston, a twenty-eight-year-old real estate developer. Houston asked me to sit in to observe, hoping I’d be able to figure out which friend’s memory I’d connected with.

  Drake informed Houston he’d first met Anton Willowby, Lucas Smith, Reggie Slater, Colin Barker, and Piney Portman when they were on the same Little League team in the first grade. They’d formed a bond when their team went undefeated, which earned them a spot in the regional championships. The boys had stayed together as a team in the years that followed, and remained close friends throughout grade school and into high school. According to Drake, they were as close as brothers could be, spending a lot of time in one another’s company. They made a point of spending long weekends together three or four times a year, as well as longer trips at least annually.

  Houston asked if all of them had always gotten along with one another. After a bit of prodding, Drake admitted there’d been tension between some of them from time to time, but it always blew over. Houston asked for an example of a time when tension occurred, and Drake responded that the most recent tension was during the trip to the lake house they’d rented the previous summer, when Piney and Anton both expressed interest in the woman who’d rented the cabin next door. Drake was pretty sure they’d made up, with no lingering resentments between them. Other women had
come between the men from time to time, but Drake had seen that lessening as the men began to enter into long-term relationships. Lucas and Reggie had become engaged, and their fiancées were with both with them on this trip. Houston asked where the women were today; apparently, they’d gone into Fairbanks on a shopping excursion. Although neither he nor Anton had brought their girlfriends with them on this trip, the only two not currently involved in serious relationships were Piney and Colin, who never seemed to date.

  Drake provided an overview of the other men and their reason for being in Rescue, and then Houston asked him what had happened on the mountain that day.

  He frowned before answering. “I’m not really sure. It was windier than any of us anticipated, and after landing and getting an idea of how the weather actually was, the helicopter pilot suggested we might want to reschedule. I was neutral, but Reggie was adamant that we ski down as we’d planned, and Anton agreed with him. Lucas made a few good points about the superior condition of the snow, and most of the guys agreed the fresh powder was too good to pass up, although Piney voiced his concern about the visibility and Colin pointed out that the wind was coming from behind the mountain, which meant once we dropped down into the little valley, we should be protected from the worst of it. In the end, we decided to go for it. The pilot agreed to wait for us about halfway down the mountain. She told us we could decide to either continue on or catch a ride at that point.”

  “And it was at that point you realized Mr. Portman was missing?” Houston asked.

  Drake nodded. “In the beginning we were all together, but some of us are faster skiers than the others, so by the time we made it to the rendezvous point, we were pretty spread out. When I arrived, Lucas and Anton were already there. Colin was right behind me, and I assumed Piney and Reggie were somewhere just behind him. Reggie showed up maybe fifteen minutes after Colin, but Piney never showed. Colin insisted Piney was in the first group, with Lucas and Anton, and Lucas and Anton said they hadn’t seen him since we all took off at the top.”

  “What did you do when Piney didn’t show?” Houston asked.

  Drake’s expression became guarded. “We tried to figure out what might have happened to him. First we talked about who had seen what, then we looked around. We were limited in what we could do with all the snow. It wasn’t like we could hike back up the mountain. Colin suggested we take the chopper back to the top and try to find Piney as we skied down a second time, but the pilot, suggested we come here and let the professionals take over. By then everyone was cold and scared. I wasn’t sure what was best, but I decided to agree to the pilot’s plan and the others went along with it too.”

  “So you really have no idea if Piney was in front of or behind you once everyone began to scatter?” I verified.

  He shook his head. “The visibility was bad up on the mountain, despite it not being all that windy when we left Rescue. I know we should have listened to the pilot when she warned us it was risky to continue. I thought Piney was in front of me, but I can’t be sure. I was focused on watching my own GPS coordinates so I didn’t end up lost and wasn’t paying as much attention to the others as I should have been.”

  Houston asked Drake a few more questions and then sent him to the kitchen while we spoke to Lucas Smith. Lucas was a commercial contractor and developer who was engaged to Miranda Colton, one of the two women who’d come on the trip.

  Lucas provided a set up similar to that provided by Drake. Six good buddies had gotten together for a ski week in Alaska. Houston asked Lucas about his recollections of the events of the day, and he shared that after they made the decision to head down the mountain, he put his head down and never looked back. He was the first one to arrive at the meeting place chosen by Dani. He also said she could verify that, which Houston shared that he planned to confirm but had no reason to doubt. Lucas said Piney was a better than average skier; not quite as good as he was, but better than most. If it turned out Piney had simply fallen or gone off course, Lucas would be very much surprised, though with the sketchy conditions, it was possible he met with an obstacle he wasn’t able to avoid.

  Anton Willowby sat down with us next. Like the others, he told us Reggie was the one who’d called him with the idea of the trip. Anton hadn’t really wanted to go at first, but he felt it made sense from a business perspective, so he agreed. When Houston asked what he meant by that, Anton said the men had all gone into fields that complemented one another, and at times two or more of them were working together on projects. Houston asked Anton to elaborate, and he explained he was an accountant, Drake a real estate developer, Lucas a commercial contractor, Reggie an investment banker, Colin a commercial real estate agent, and Piney a business attorney.

  It was during our interview with the fourth man, Reggie Slater, that Jake called to let Houston know they’d found Piney Portman exactly where I’d said he would be. Unfortunately, as I suspected, he was already dead. Not only that, all indications were that he might have been murdered. It looked like our missing persons investigation had just turned into a murder investigation.

  ******

  After Houston had interviewed all five of the men, he excused me to head to Neverland for the debriefing, while he stayed behind to do some additional digging.

  “If Piney Portman was murdered, as the scene of his death suggests, he has to have been killed by one of the five other men in the ski party,” Dani insisted. “Not only did Harmony get a peek at a memory of someone at the inn, I didn’t see anyone else up on the mountain.”

  “Fill me in on why you think he was murdered,” said Sarge, former military and the cook at Neverland, who hadn’t been in on this rescue.

  “We found the body on a ledge a good hundred feet below where he had to have gone over,” Landon provided. “He landed on some rocks and we knew for certain he couldn’t have survived, but we won’t be able to get a close look at the body until it’s recovered. There was evidence of two sets of ski tracks on the bluff above, as well as signs of a struggle and blood in the snow in a few areas, like rock groupings, protected from the wind. That indicated, to Jake and me, that Portman was involved in an altercation before going over the ledge. Until the storm lets up and it’s safe to retrieve the body, there isn’t a lot more that can be said one way or another.”

  “When do you think you’ll be able to get the body?” I asked Dani.

  “The wind is supposed to let up overnight. I should be able to land on the ledge tomorrow.”

  “Wyatt and I will head out at first light with Dani,” Jake said. “If she can land anywhere near the body, we should be able to bring him in. Maybe there will be evidence on the body to indicate what might have occurred.”

  “Has Houston told the other members of the ski party you suspect foul play?” Sarge asked.

  I shook my head. “No. He conducted the interviews in such a way as to suggest he was only trying to determine how an accident might have occurred, and you hadn’t found the body until he’d spoken with most of them. The group is planning to be here until the twenty-third, which should give him time to sort everything out.”

  “What about motive?” Jake’s girlfriend and team member Dr. Jordan Fairchild asked.

  Everyone turned to me. “I’m not sure. All five claimed they were a close-knit group who’d been best friends since first grade. Several of them mentioned occasional tension between some of them from time to time, but no one made it out to sound as if it was the kind of thing that destroys relationships. They worked together at times, and all of them agreed to come on this trip. It would seem they’d mended fences and whatever went on in the past was resolved. Still, I was picking something up. And not from just one of them. They all seemed to be holding something back.” I frowned. “I’ll try to talk to them again after we retrieve the body. Maybe someone will let something slip. Everyone had his guard up big-time today.”

  “The women who are traveling with them might be able to provide some insight as well,” Jordan pointed out.<
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  “Houston and I discussed that. They hadn’t returned to the inn before I left to come over here, but I know he planned to speak to them.”

  “I wonder why the men didn’t stay together,” Jordan said. “I mean, with the weather conditions, I’d think they’d realize there was safety in numbers.”

  I shifted in my chair so the fire in the stone fireplace could warm my other side. “Houston asked them that. They all said they had differing skill levels, and the ones who were faster didn’t want to wait for the ones who were slower, so they agreed to meet up at the helicopter.”

  “Do we know in what order they arrived at the helicopter?” Sarge asked.

  “Lucas Smith was first, followed by Anton Willowby. Shortly after that, Reggie Slater showed up, followed by Colin Barker and Drake Weston, who came in so close together, I didn’t notice which came in first,” Dani answered.

  “And was Piney Portman fast or slow?” Jordan asked.

  “That’s the odd thing. The men in the front of the pack swear he was behind them, and those at the back swear he was in front of them. We couldn’t find two of the five who agreed on this detail,” I answered. “No one claims to have seen Portman after they took off from the top, but it seems obvious to me that if he was killed, one of the five killed him.”