Summer Searcher

by M K Dymock

  A crow sitting above them blasted its own answer. “We got a few hits back on some different identities with the same description. Hylia Hayes wasn’t her first nor her last ID. There’s also a warrant out for her arrest for stealing.”

  He sank a little at those words, though he shouldn’t be surprised. He put a lot at risk by trusting her, and he couldn’t be wrong. Sol thumbed through a few proper responses before speaking. “Where at?”

  “Over in Summit. Apparently, she worked at one of the shops there. The owner got suspicious about her origins, and she took off—with about a $1000 worth of clothes, shoes, coats, that sort of thing.”

  Sol swallowed the retort that she wouldn’t do that, because he didn’t really know what she was capable of, did he? “You don’t think the Hylia identity is legit.”

  “I don’t have the luxury to go with my gut, Sol. But I do know there are two supposed murders in my jurisdiction, and if this girl can shed any light on them, we need to bring her in.”

  Sol would revisit his decision in that moment in the days to come. Would he have made the same one if he’d known all the consequences? But even as the lie came out, he knew what he was risking. “I’ll let you know if I learn anything. In the meantime, I’ll talk with this detective and see what he thinks.”

  Why hadn’t he told Clint what he knew? Was he really naïve enough to risk everything because that woman asked him for help? Then he remembered her panicked, blood-streaked face the day she stumbled out of the woods, pleading with him to find her family. You couldn’t fake that kind of fear.

  Sol parked in the hotel lot next to a black SUV with Washington plates. He’d have thought the detective would take a plane, considering the several hours of driving that separated them from Seattle.

  A man with dark hair stood at the check-in desk craning his neck, probably looking for the manager. This hotel would’ve emptied out in the morning. Lost Gorge did not draw tourists who stayed inside. The guest looked a little young to be the retired detective.

  Sol joined him at the counter. “If you’re looking for someone, they’re all probably cleaning rooms. You’ll have to call the hotel number.”

  “Thanks.” He glanced at Sol’s uniform, taking in his badge. “Can I ask you a quick question?”

  “Sure.”

  “If I wanted to hit the backcountry and avoid any people, what trailhead would I start at?”

  He definitely wasn’t the Seattle detective. “Any of them,” Sol said without thinking, but then he paused to consider something. He needed to talk more to Hylia about their habits around coming into town for supplies. It would be much easier to track David once he was out of the mountains. Except David probably wouldn’t be coming down for another few months, and Hylia wouldn’t wait. Something to consider as a Plan B.

  “Deputy Chapa.” Sol turned to face the man who he’d come to meet.

  Sol had drawn a picture in his mind of what the retired detective would look like, an elderly grizzled cop with a limp. His picture looked nothing like reality. Reality was a man with a full head of dark blond hair and an easy gait with an easier smile.

  Former Detective Danny Shea stood from the leather chair in the hotel lobby as he closed the lid on his tablet. He strode over and put his hand out. “Sol Chapa? I’m hoping we can share what we know about the case.”

  Sol would have to measures his words carefully, but he always did that. “I don’t know much beyond what we’ve already talked about. I haven’t learned anything new since then.”

  “No, but I have.” His blue eyes sparkled like Catherine’s in a mine.

  Sol took the chair across from Shea, and they both sat. They didn’t run much of a risk of being overheard at noon in the hotel. Tourists came to this town to play outside, not stay in. The manager, who Sol went to school with, would be helping the housekeeping to ready the rooms for the night.

  “The day after you called, I got another call. Ten years and no one has touched this case, then you and a lawyer representing the family estate both reach out asking questions. That’s not a coincidence.”

  “What did the lawyer want?”

  “Asked for updates about the case,” Shea said. “Which seemed odd to me as there is no family to update. Both of the Hayes were only children, and both were raised by single parents, who have since died. There was no family left; we looked.”

  Sol considered the family member back at his house and wondered how she fit in with all this. She hadn’t mentioned meeting a lawyer. “This lawyer leave his name?”

  “I’ll give you a name in exchange for information.”

  “Aren’t you retired?”

  Shea glanced around the lobby before leaning forward in his chair. “Deputy Chapa, if you’re looking into this case, no one knows it better than I do. You won’t get far without me. I can clog the flow of information or let it flow freely.”

  Sol parceled through who knew what. “Last year we had a woman show up claiming to be Hylia Hayes.” He stuck with the story he’d told Clint and explained they’d recently started to wonder if she was telling the truth after all.

  “The daughter?” Shea rubbed a hand through a thick head of hair that a man of his age shouldn’t have. “Do you have a picture or something? I can’t believe . . .”

  Sol pulled out his phone with the blurry shot Clint took last year. “Recognize her?”

  Shea looked up, his eyes full of wonder. “Looks like we have an idea who called the lawyer. I think we can get him to talk.”

  37

  Hylia sat next to a strange woman, feeling oddly at ease with the situation. Perhaps being a strange woman herself aided in their camaraderie—or the fact they were both very comfortable with silence.

  She worked through the writings with Catherine’s help at deciphering what she couldn’t. In a few hours, they’d managed to identify two mines that Hylia was fairly sure she’d never been to and Catherine had never heard of. A perfect escape for her father.

  Thoughts of Link intruded every other second. She pushed them back. Later, there would be time to mourn, time to regret, but not now. On the odd second Link didn’t fill her moments, Merrell took his place.

  The most painful thoughts weren’t the sad memories but the happy ones. One year he’d hidden two Christmas presents from them for months after their last jaunt to town. A toy for Link and a book for her. The book was filled with natural cures. “Your mother always says nature could cure most things, and she’ll cure everything else.” He’d talked about her in present tense as if they would meet up any day now.

  Some months, he’d plan their next steps to Canada, out of reach of the government—or maybe Mexico. Other months, he kept them out of the daylight, sure the satellites had spied them. Maybe that’s why Hylia stayed as long as she did—he never took hope away completely.

  It would’ve been better for them if he had.

  Hylia shook her head and the thoughts rattling around. There would be time later to sort through all the emotions—if they managed to float back up. Practice had made it easier to do the pushing.

  Catherine pulled off her glasses, rubbing her eyes. “I don’t think these mines will lead to much.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I know this area well. The ground isn’t conducive to mining. A person wouldn’t be able to drill in very far without a cave-in. They probably got no more than fifty feet in before giving up.”

  Except they weren’t looking for a cave to mine in—Merrell would be looking for a mine to hide out in. “We can mark it down, just in case,” Hylia said.

  “The writings refer several times to the home of bwystfil eira,” Catherine said. “Any idea what that refers to?”

  “Snow animal? No, I assume maybe the snow rabbit or something else trapped for food.”

  “The proper translation isn’t snow animal; it’s snow beast.”

  Hylia paused flipping the pages of her notebook over. That wasn’t a phrase that would show up in the
book. Had her father given up on writing in code? Her hands gripped the page, and the wire binding broke a few links. “Are you sure of the translation?”

  “Yes,” Catherine said without defending or elaborating.

  She finished turning the page. “You got me.”

  Merrell had told them the stories of the snow beast to keep them occupied during the long winters. A man-like ape with long white hair that stood eight feet tall and could stand five feet away in a blizzard and remained unseen. Hylia eventually outgrew the stories of her father’s version of Bigfoot.

  One detail, however, always stuck with her during the blowing blizzards when she swore she could hear an almost human howl in the night sky. The beast could only survive in the snowfields. When the summer shrunk the snow to only the highest peaks, it would retreat with it. Very few places in the area had snow year-round.

  She needed to talk to Sol.

  Sol. His was another thought to fill the gaps between her father and brother. Why was he helping her? She trusted him only because she had no choice. As soon as his usefulness wore out, she would have to ditch him in the mountains.

  He may be a seeker, but she was a really good hider.

  38

  Sol took Shea back to the sheriff’s office, where introductions were made. Whatever big doubts Clint harbored about whether they had the Hayes daughter running around their mountains, Sol hoped Shea put them at ease.

  “You sure it’s her?” Clint asked.

  “Sol showed me her photo, and she’s her mother.”

  “You knew the mother well?” Shea looked down but not before Sol caught a flash of something—sadness, shame? Clint must’ve caught it too because he kept prodding. “How did you know her?”

  Shea looked back up, his face wiped of the previous emotion. “I told your deputy we worked together—sort of—at the hospital.”

  “Did you know her well enough that she talked to you about her family?” Sol asked.

  “I met them on occasion. Her schedule was crazy, so David would bring in the kids to have dinner with her now and then when they were smaller.”

  “Let’s sit down,” Clint said. “I want to know everything about this family who supposedly died in our mountains.” The sheriff led them into their only interrogation room, which doubled as a conference room, having the largest table in the office.

  “How old were the kids when their father brought them here?” Clint asked.

  Not when they were murdered, Sol noted. Clint would stick with what they knew, not what everyone suspected. One of the most infuriating things about him was his refusal to make leaps in an investigation—it was also one of his best traits.

  “The boy was six and the girl twelve.” Shea’s forehead furrowed at the old memories. “You have to understand they weren’t a traditional family. David stayed home with the kids, and Charlotte worked crazy hours.”

  “Meaning?” Clint asked.

  “If we’re right about who this woman is—who she was—where has she been all these years? Where is her brother, her father?”

  “We don’t know,” Sol said, a little too quickly.

  “Even if her father murdered her mother, she’s going to protect him. He was her primary caregiver her entire life. If he’s still alive, her loyalty will be to him.”

  Sol glanced out the open door and out the office window where somewhere beyond Hylia worked to discover her father’s location. “I want to go call the lawyer. Maybe he’ll let us know who the family member is he represents.”

  “He’s not going to violate attorney–client privilege.”

  “Let me talk to him,” Clint said.

  Shea dialed the number in the speaker phone. “Hello.” Clint wasted no time introducing himself and stating the purpose of the call.

  “I can’t tell you who my clients are at this time,” the lawyer, Jim, said.

  “We currently believe Hylia Hayes may very well be alive.”

  “What makes you say that?” Jim asked slowly.

  Sol noticed he didn’t sound surprised, meaning Hylia had reached out to him. He didn’t blame her for not telling him everything, but he did have to wonder what else she’d kept to herself.

  “Look, I know you can’t confirm nor deny, blah, blah, blah, but let’s say for an instant she is your client. She could know the whereabouts of a wanted murderer,” Clint said.

  Jim hesitated before responding. “I believe the case was closed as a suicide.”

  “We still don’t know where Link Hayes is. Anything you can tell me about the father would be helpful.”

  Another moment’s hesitation, which Clint was smart enough not to interrupt.

  “Considering David Hayes is dead, I don’t how helpful that would be.” His voice echoed out of the speaker phone. “But if you speak to the detective, please tell him my clients are especially interested in the location of the money.”

  Both men turned to Detective Shea, who showed confusion and who hadn’t spoken up yet.

  “What money would that be?” Clint asked.

  “I had a forensic accountant dig into the Hayes’s finances when my clients recently reached out. There were a lot of expenditures in the few months before . . . before the incident. But a significant sum of money was withdrawn a few days after David Hayes went off a cliff.”

  All of them stared at each other, not saying out loud what they were all were thinking. David had had funds to go on the run with.

  “Not to mention,” Jim continued, “the $10K in cash the police inventoried in evidence but never saw again. I’d like to know who has that”

  Shea’s face filled with rage, and before his sputter could turn into a rant, Clint slammed the mute button. “Wait,” he said. “If he knows you’re here, he may stop talking openly.”

  “You heard what he’s accusing me of?”

  “Yep, and I don’t care.” Clint hit the mute button again. “I can’t speak to any cash, but I would be very interested in hearing about these accounts. You said they were last accessed two days after David went off a cliff.”

  Sol’s phone buzzed against his leg, and he slipped it into his palm to cop a quick glance. We found something.

  “No, I said funds were withdrawn a few days after, but they’ve been accessed many times throughout the years.”

  Someone still had access to those accounts, and he didn’t think it was Hylia. Maybe David Hayes had left the mountains in the last ten years.

  39

  Hylia heard the diesel truck before Sol’s hand turned the front door knob. It gave her enough time to stick the book and her notes into her backpack.

  Catherine, who was in the kitchen and out of sight, came into the living room at the sound. She took the engine as a cue to call an end to their searching. “Thank you, Jennifer. I should go. I have to write at least 1,000 words a day on my thesis.” Hylia hadn’t been quite ready to let everyone know her identity. “This has been quite the pleasurable day.”

  Hylia couldn’t help but wonder what Catherine considered a bad day. She barely greeted Sol as they passed each other at the door.

  Sol took Catherine’s place at the kitchen table and dumped out a bag of hamburgers. “Did I scare Catherine away?”

  “Nope, but you almost did me with your appalling lack of food in this house.” She grabbed the first burger and removed all veggies from the patty. She’d never learned to eat fresh food like an adult.

  “What did you find?” He removed his ever-present hat, revealing an expanding and whiter forehead.

  “Are there many glaciers around? Not just a pocket, but a significant field.”

  He paused, hat in hand, contemplating. “There’s not anything nearby.”

  “What do you consider nearby?”

  “Within 150 miles or so.” He pulled out a chair and a burger. “What do you consider nearby?”

  “You can walk to it in a week’s time.”

  She watched the calculations roll across his face. “How old do you thi
nk the child is? That would slow him down.”

  She hadn’t considered the girl as part of her equation. “Four, maybe five.”

  “How often did you move in the summer?”

  “Every few weeks, but sometimes we’d stay in the more remote places for a month. Merrell didn’t want us to look too settled anywhere if someone stumbled on to us.” She explained about the snow beast. “Catherine said there might be some mines up in the highest areas. She hasn’t been up that far to confirm. She didn’t think they’d be much size-wise.” Hylia showed him what Catherine showed her.

  “Where did you get the money to buy supplies when you came down?” Her head jerked up at the unexpected turn in the conversation. Sol kept his down and focused on the map.

  That was no casual question. “Link and I worked the occasional odd job. There’s work around here if you’re willing to be paid in cash. A lot of folks aren’t eager to share with Uncle Sam.” Like most things Hylia said, the statement contained a partial lie and partial truth. But she wasn’t about to tell this stranger about the trove—as Merrell called it. Money to humans is like raw meat in a cougar trap, Merrell would explain.

  “Yeah, a lot of people come to Lost Gorge to hide out from the world,” Sol said.

  “That’s an understatement.”

  He looked up at her sarcasm. “I’m not judging. People can come here all they want and I won’t say a thing . . . up until they hurt someone else.”

  Was that a promise or a threat? “I just want my niece safe.”

  “And what about your dad?” He could’ve punched her in the gut and it would’ve hurt less.

  She flinched. “You mean am I worried about his safety? Of course, I–”

  Regret filled his eyes. “I’m sorry.” He moved to her side and reached out a hand as if to pat her shoulder but rescinded it as quickly as he lifted it. “I guess what I’m asking is, if we find him, is there a chance he’ll attack us?”