Savaged, Page 2

  And if so, where? In an icy stream? The picture her mind conjured wasn’t unpleasant, and ashamed of herself, she pushed the image aside.

  “You sure you never ran across that guy either on a guided tour or when you were out by yourself?”

  No, I’d remember him. Harper shook her head again.

  “He might’ve been wearing something less conspicuous. Especially if it was summer.”

  Like what? A loincloth? Somehow, she didn’t think that would be any less conspicuous. “I’m sure. Who is he, Dwayne?”

  Dwayne blew out a breath, shutting off the monitor. Harper felt a momentary twinge of loss that was totally bizarre. But truthfully, she wanted to study him. She wanted to be left alone in this room and watch him on that camera for a little while just to see what he would do. As if he's some kind of alien life and not a human being? What’s wrong with you, Harper?

  “Says his name is Lucas. That’s it. No last name. Just Lucas.”

  Harper furrowed her brow. “I don’t get it.”

  Dwayne rubbed at his eye and Harper suddenly realized how tired he looked. “I don’t either yet.” He leaned on the edge of the table. “I suppose Keri mentioned there’s been another murder?”

  Harper nodded. “Yeah. Can you tell me who?” Harper’s stomach clenched. She’d kept her mind from drifting to that question, because she knew that whomever it was, she’d probably either know them, or know them well. With a population of two thousand residents, Helena Springs was too small for that not to be the case.

  Dwayne nodded. “A man by the name of Isaac Driscoll, who lived in a cabin about twenty miles south of town.”

  South?

  Harper blinked in surprise. There was nothing south except plains, mountains, rivers, and valleys, miles and miles of unforgiving wilderness. Snow and ice-covered unforgiving wilderness at the moment. Nothing particularly habitable . . . or so she’d thought.

  Dwayne continued. “The victim was somehow able to reach his cell phone and dial 9-1-1. He didn’t speak, but a cell tower helped pinpoint his location and he died before Paul could get there. The old cell tower used to get us to within a thousand feet, but the new system gets us to within thirty. Nice piece of technology. Anyway, Paul thought it was probably the usual, a lost hiker or something of that nature.” The lines around his eyes tightened for a moment. He looked concerned that those words would hit her in a personal way, and he was right.

  But she shook off the feeling and focused on the situation at hand. A hiker? Anyone hiking out in that direction this time of year would have to have a few screws loose. Or . . . be very lost. The memory rose again and with more effort, she mentally pushed it aside as Dwayne continued.

  “When Paul got out to the remote area where the ping had come from, he spotted a cabin in the distance.”

  She nodded, surprised there was road access out that far, or even flat land by which to travel.

  Dwayne sighed. “Luckily, there was a small break in the weather so Paul could get out there, because the snow really started coming down before he had even left the crime scene.” Dwayne rifled through a folder on the table and pulled out what looked to be a photo printed from the Internet. He handed it to Harper. “This is the victim. Ever see him on one of your tours?”

  Harper studied him. He was a nondescript older man. Sixties. Gray, balding hair, glasses. Short beard. A thick neck leading her to believe he was stocky. Harper handed it back to Dwayne. “Not that I can remember.”

  Dwayne placed the picture back in the folder and Harper glanced at the blank screen. “What does he have to do with all of this?”

  Dwayne sighed again. “Suppose you heard about the murder weapon used on the woman staying at the Larkspur.”

  A statement, not a question, but Harper nodded. “I did.” She didn’t need to expound, didn’t need to mention that Keri had confided to her—and half the town—that the woman had been shot with a bow and arrow at the one establishment in town that was available for out-of-town guests.

  Harper grimaced internally at the picture that still formed in her mind when she thought of the unknown woman she’d heard about a week earlier, an arrow shot so powerfully that it had come out of the other side of her body, and still had enough force to lodge in the wood of the wall.

  “The weapon used in that crime is the same type of weapon used in Isaac Driscoll’s murder.”

  “Oh,” she breathed.

  “Yeah. Unusual to say the least. Not too many people use them in general, and especially not to commit murder. Much less two.” Dwayne glanced at the blank screen the same way Harper had. “Paul had just left the scene and almost ran that guy over on his way out. Acted like he’d never seen a truck before—which, come to find out, maybe he hasn’t. Anyway, Paul was already shaken having just discovered a macabre crime scene and here this guy comes, right across his path, carrying a bow and arrow on his back.”

  Harper widened her eyes. “Carrying— You think he’s the murderer?”

  “He says he’s not, and there’s no evidence at this point to say he is, except the bow and arrow. Though the one he was carrying has arrows different in appearance than the ones used in the two crimes. And there are spots for each arrow in the case he was carrying and none were missing. We took it into evidence. But add in the fact that he knows how to use one and that he lives in the vicinity of Isaac Driscoll, and he’s at least a person of interest.”

  Harper stared at the sheriff for a moment. “They both live out there?”

  “Appears so. Says he lives ten thousand, five hundred seventy-three steps from Driscoll, in the direction of the three mountain peaks.”

  “Huh?”

  “I know. That’s how he described the distance between their residences. Strange.”

  To say the least. She shook her head in disbelief. She led guided tours into that wilderness—nature lovers, campers, hunters. But she couldn’t imagine living there permanently—in every season. It would be . . . practically impossible to survive, at least without a whole hell of a lot of gear.

  “Did they know each other?”

  “Lucas says he traded things with Driscoll, who made trips into town. Fish Lucas caught for clothing items, etcetera. He said other than that they didn’t have much of a relationship—he didn’t consider the man a friend. Just someone he did business with.”

  Business. “Fish he caught? So . . . that man in there has never been to town?”

  “That’s what he says.”

  “So, he couldn’t have killed the woman at the bed & breakfast.”

  Dwayne shrugged. “We’re going on his word alone right now because it’s all we have. We won’t have forensics back for a little while, but so far, nothing places him there. We really have nothing to hold him on.”

  Harper pressed her lips together, going back over Dwayne’s words. Never been to town? Never been out of that wilderness? How was that possible? Her questions were endless. But that wasn’t why Dwayne had asked her there. He wanted information from her, not the other way around. “I don’t typically take tours south, and hunting is better east of the river. But in any case, I’ve never run across either one of them that I can remember. And I’ve never come across a dwelling of any sort. I’m as surprised as you are.” Twenty miles made a hell of a difference as far as terrain, but it wasn’t so far that someone couldn’t live a more comfortable life in a populated town and still enjoy the wilderness for all it offered. She didn’t get it.

  Dwayne stood up from the table, gesturing to a small fridge near the door that she assumed held drinks. She shook her head and he removed a water bottle, uncapping it and taking a long sip before saying, “We called in the Missoula crime lab to process the scene, but we’ve had to call in the Montana Department of Justice to investigate. We’re simply not equipped to deal with a crime like this. The agent they sent is at the first crime scene at the Larkspur, but he should be back shortly to ask Lucas a few more questions. And”—he paused, creasing his brow as if he w
as worried about what her reaction would be to his next words—“I’m hoping you’re okay that I’ve offered up your services. We could use your help.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Agent Mark Gallagher stood still, taking in the room as a whole, memorizing the layout, waiting for anything that immediately seemed out of place to catch his attention. Nothing did except the large dark stain on the carpet. But he’d expected that. The woman who’d died here had not experienced a peaceful death.

  No, there had been fear and suffering, and finally death, though a quiet one, as the arrow that had driven through her throat, had cut off her air, and the scream he was sure had been trapped within. He’d seen the crime scene photos. The woman was wearing nothing but a T-shirt and white cotton underwear—presumably what she’d worn to sleep in—and her eyes were open in horror. Judging by the thrown-back covers, she’d been halfway between the bed and the window—she’d attempted to run but hadn’t gotten very far.

  Of course, she hadn’t had much of a chance. Killing with a bow and arrow didn’t require close proximity. That was kind of the point, wasn’t it? The killer hadn’t had to move much farther than the doorway where he’d entered by picking the flimsy lock while the woman slept.

  Mark opened a dresser drawer. Nothing. She had a duffel bag holding several items of clothing, and there was toothpaste on the sink, but it appeared she hadn’t intended on a long trip. Or, the woman didn’t own much.

  There was a stack of books on the nightstand and Mark picked up the one on top. The Giver. He placed it aside and looked at the next three: Ender’s Game, The Maze Runner, and The Lightning Thief. Mark’s brows lowered. He didn’t know anything about the victim, but the titles seemed like odd choices for an adult woman the ME had estimated to be in her mid to late thirties. Mark recognized them as books geared toward young adults.

  Mark spotted something on the spine of The Giver and upon closer inspection, it appeared that a yellow sticker had been there but had been peeled off recently. Some of the remaining glue was still sticky. A price tag? Although . . . the books on the nightstand were well used. Maybe they’d come from a used bookstore. He inspected the other books and found visible traces of glue as well, and small pieces of yellow sticker on the spines of those ones as well. Huh. So, they’d probably all come from the same place. Somewhere in town that might remember this woman? He opened the book covers one by one and saw that the first page of each one had been torn out. Weird. They could very well be books the woman had owned for years, old favorites she’d brought along to re-read. Still . . . they felt out of place and that nagged at him. He snapped a couple of quick pictures of the pile of books on the nightstand.

  “Sir? Agent Gallagher?” The woman standing in the doorway wringing a dishtowel in her hands was small and thin, in her late sixties he estimated, with a blonde bob that ended at her jaw. She was wearing an apron, a smear of something bright red on the skirt. In the midst of a bloody crime scene, the vision was decidedly unsettling.

  He smiled. “Mrs. Wilcox?”

  The woman he knew to be the owner of the Larkspur Bed & Breakfast/Restaurant nodded, glancing nervously around the room and then taking a step back. He led her into the hallway and closed the door behind him. “Terrible what happened here.”

  She bobbed her head, swallowing, her hands still wringing the towel. “Oh, I can hardly sleep for thinking about it. Right under my own roof too.” She grimaced. “Do they know anything about that poor woman yet?”

  “Not yet, ma’am. I was wondering if you could tell me anything about her that might have stood out to you?”

  She looked to the side and frowned in concentration. “Mostly the fact that she was staying here at all. We don’t get many guests in the winter. We only have the three rooms. The restaurant is our main business through all the seasons, but especially the cold ones. We get the occasional person passing through town that needs a place to stay for the night, or someone visiting relatives who wants a space of their own, but it’s rare. So, I was surprised when she rang the bell last Wednesday and said she wanted to rent a room for the week.”

  He jotted that down in the notebook he kept in his jacket pocket. A week.

  “She didn’t mention she was visiting anyone then?”

  “No, and I asked. ‘What brings you to Helena Springs?’ I’d said. She got this faraway look on her face and then told me she was here to try to right a wrong. Well, I didn’t know exactly what to say to that, but she changed the subject anyway, asking about the restaurant hours.”

  Here to right a wrong. Mark wrote that down as well, tapping the pen on the pad for a second before he asked, “She paid in cash?”

  “She did. I asked for ID of course, per protocol, but she told me her wallet had been stolen recently, so she didn’t have any. Well, not having ID made me hesitate to rent the room to her, but she was paying up front, and it was so very cold out. It wouldn’t have been Christian of me to send her back out into that weather with nowhere else to stay in town.”

  “Of course. I understand.” Mark gave Mrs. Wilcox a pleasant smile, which she returned, her shoulders dropping as if she was worried he’d disapprove of her lack of following protocol. “Did you happen to see if someone dropped her off?” There hadn’t been a vehicle left in the parking lot, which meant the woman had either walked, or been driven by someone else.

  Mrs. Wilcox shook her head. “I didn’t even hear her come in. I was watching a show when I heard the bell ring at the front desk. Took me completely by surprise.”

  “What can you tell me about that night?”

  Mrs. Wilcox had ceased wringing the towel, but at the reference to that night, she started up again. Mark wondered if it would tear in half. “I heard yelling,” she whispered, glancing back down the hall over Mark’s shoulder as if someone might suddenly appear and overhear her say something she shouldn’t. “I couldn’t hear everything, but I did hear him yell, ‘How could you? How could you? You ruined everything.’”

  “And it was definitely a man’s voice?”

  “Oh yes. No mistaking that. I thought about coming up here. Guests aren’t allowed to have other people stay in their room without paying for double occupancy, you know? And there was the fighting . . . that was concerning. But then the yelling stopped, and I decided to address it in the morning.” She frowned, shaking her head. “I did the wrong thing, didn’t I?”

  “No, ma’am. It’s understandable. There’s no way you could have known it was anything more than a couple’s spat.”

  “Nothing like this has ever happened in Helena Springs.” Her hands stopped working the towel as she leaned forward. “There have been accidents where people lost their lives. The Ward family comes to mind, of course.” She pursed her lips and shook her head. “That poor girl, Harper, losing both her parents that way. Well,” she said, drawing her shoulders back and seeming to catch herself talking of things she hadn’t been asked about. Mark was used to that, though. It was a thing people did—they looked to fill the silence, so he made sure to leave plenty of it available. Because often, that uninhibited chatter contained useful information. Having worked the job for almost thirty years, he’d learned to wait, listen, and store information away, just in case.

  He handed Mrs. Wilcox his card. “If you think of anything else. Anything at all—no detail is too small—give me a call.”

  She took his card, slipping it into the pocket of her apron and nodding. “I absolutely will.” She began to turn. “I’d better get back to those pies. I bake when I’m nervous. It helps—” She waved her hand around. “Anyway, Agent Gallagher, I’ll call if I think of anything.”

  He tipped his head. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  She gave him a nervous smile and then turned, heading back toward the stairs to the kitchen where he could smell the sweet and tart aroma of cherry pie baking.

  Laurie used to make cherry pie—the crust woven together like a basket so the little spaces in between bubbled red and gooey when the pi
e was hot. That smell made him yearn, made the empty spots inside him throb with the reminder of what had been. He shook it off, concentrating on things he’d jotted in his notebook, turning his mind back to the two murdered people deserving of justice.

  He needed to get to that second scene. He wanted to look at it as soon as possible after examining the first—see if something about them seemed familiar in a way he might not recognize if the timing was further apart. Tomorrow morning wouldn’t be good enough. He’d told Laurie he’d be home for dinner, but she’d understand that with a new job, he had to give it his all. Not that he’d do less regardless. It wasn’t in his nature to half-ass anything, never had been. Although he wondered distantly if he was doing everything he could where his marriage was concerned. He pushed those thoughts aside for the moment. That would take time. He hoped. God, he hoped.

  It felt like he’d been hoping for a long time. Too long maybe.

  As he walked to his truck, snow was falling again, the icy air burning his skin. The sky was gray and low, as though at any moment it might descend lower and crush everyone beneath it. It made him feel depressed and claustrophobic. Jesus, how did these people survive months and months of this? He guessed he’d know soon enough, but he already missed the endless blue California sky.

  The sheriff had told him he had a local girl in mind who knew the terrain well. Good, because he’d need her. His knowledge about wilderness could fill a shot glass. And him trekking around alone in the snow sounded extremely unpleasant and mostly pointless.

  After he’d slid inside his SUV, turned the ignition, and started blasting the heat, he checked the name he’d jotted in his notebook. Harper Ward. I thought so. It was the same girl Mrs. Wilcox had mentioned. That poor girl, Harper Ward, losing both her parents that way. The sheriff had told him her father had been the previous sheriff in Helena Springs, and a guilty look had flashed in the man’s eyes that Mark didn’t have enough information to understand. He wondered what it meant and figured he could find out easily enough if he wanted to—there was always someone—or twenty someones—willing to talk about their neighbors in a small town. But he’d rather keep his focus on what was important to his case and solve this crime—crimes—before anyone else in this small town got hurt.