Bear Bait (9781101611548) (13 page)

“Around.” King tapped a corner of the top envelope. “Check out the postmark.”

Clearly, the Port Angeles post office needed to clean their stamping machine. The word
Port
was only a smudge. On one envelope, he could make out
geles
, on another,
Angel
. A Port Angeles postmark could easily be mistaken for Los Angeles.

“Besides, you think old man Craig’s going to check a postmark?”

Ernest Craig would glom on to a postcard from Allie like a drowning man would grab a life preserver. Jack looked up at King, who was grinning. Sometimes, for a dim bulb, the guy had some pretty bright ideas.

CHASE
Perez sighed in exasperation when he got Sam’s voice mail. He was happy that she finally had her own cell phone, but she wasn’t much easier to get hold of now than she’d been before. At least half the time she was out of range or had the dang thing turned off to save the battery. Knowing her, she probably subscribed to the cheapest cell plan with the lousiest coverage.

Yawning, he turned his back to the window of Starbucks and studied the cloudy sky overhead. He and Nicole had been up half the night watching crime scene techs take apart the Ford Explorer the would-be robbers had left behind, making sure the fingerprints and hair samples went to the front of the processing queue in New York. They’d caught a few hours’ sleep at a Days Inn, but not nearly enough to face the mountain of papers recovered from the vehicle.

After the beep, he said, “Summer, it’s Chase. I’m thinking of you, too. I’m still in Washington State, and I’m sure going to try to find the time to see you again. I’ve been
studying the manual, and believe me, the first chance I get, I
am
going to show you my special agent tricks.”

“I’d like to see them, too.” Nicole stood at his elbow.

He straightened, flipped the phone closed, and stuffed it in his pocket. “Stop sneaking up on me.”

“Who’s sneaking?” She thrust one of the two lattés she held in his direction. “I’m just delivering coffee.” She nodded toward the car. “It’s your turn to drive. I want to have a look at this manual you mentioned.”

He pretended not to see his partner’s smirk as he followed her back to the car.

THE
lobby of the main park headquarters was empty. As Sam passed the assistant superintendent’s office, she noticed Hoyle hunched over the desktop, staring at a computer screen.

She stopped at the park superintendent’s office. It was empty, the lights off, the desk far too neat; the room looked as though Tracey Carsen had not visited it for several days.

“Westin.” Behind her, Peter Hoyle had come out into the hallway. He pointed into his office like he was ordering a dog to lie down in the corner. Reluctantly, Sam obeyed. They settled into their respective chairs at the same time.

“If you want to communicate with management, then you need to talk to me. Superintendent Carsen will be out for a while. She just had knee surgery and will be out on medical leave for six weeks.” Hoyle narrowed his eyes.

“Okay.” This explained a lot. Sam had been hired by Tracey Carsen. Now Peter Hoyle was stuck managing a project and a person he had probably never approved of in the first place.

“Why did you want to see Superintendent Carsen?”

Sam slung her daypack into the adjacent guest chair, pulled out the sketch Lisa had penciled. “I want to talk about this.” She thrust the drawing across the desk. With only a few lines, the girl had captured the likeness of a
hawk-nosed man. The drawing depicted an intense-looking fellow with slick-backed hair, bushy brows, piercing eyes, Fu Manchu mustache, and pointed goatee. Add horns and you’d have the devil, Sam thought.

Hoyle’s eyebrows dipped into a vee as Sam told him about her conversation with Lisa. His frown deepened with each added piece of information, plowing horizontal furrows across his forehead.

“Like I told you yesterday, you should have called me. A law enforcement ranger should have interviewed her.”

“I was afraid that there wouldn’t be time for one to get there.” Plus the fact that she wanted to hear Lisa’s story for herself.

Hoyle stared at the drawing. “This is all I need.”

The assistant superintendent seemed immobilized by the course of events. Sam prompted him, “First there was deliberate fire setting, and now an alleged kidnapping on federal property. I thought you might want to call the FBI.”

Hoyle slapped the drawing down on his desk. “Are you sure about this, Westin?”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Why would I make this up?”

“Publicity stunt for another Internet drama?”

Sam chose not to dignify that with a response. “Do you want
me
to call the FBI?” she asked.

All the way from the hospital to headquarters, she had struggled with the urge to phone Chase. But the park service was an entrenched federal bureaucracy, not unlike the military. Skipping the chain of command would anger the management and make her remaining contract time miserable. Like many other law enforcement agencies, NPS rangers tended to view FBI agents as glory-grabbing snobs.

Hoyle sighed heavily. “You have an environmental survey to complete in three weeks. Not to mention writing the management recommendations; be sure to copy that form I gave you. I don’t need you sit with Lisa until”—he checked a page on the top of his out-box stack—“four to eight
P.M.
Wednesday.”

“Got it.” Sam stood up.

“And another fax from that Best guy came for you. I never know where you’ll show up, so I sent a copy to the west district building, too.” Hoyle glared at her as if it were Sam’s fault that she was a roving temp.

What was she supposed to say here? “Uh, thanks, Peter.”

“Get back to work, Westin. Write me a confidential report about everything Lisa said to you, and I do mean everything you learned about her. I’ll take care of the rest.”

THE
trail crew was hacking out new switchbacks up the mountain on the way to the first of the pools in Seven Lake Basin. When she first arrived in the park, Sam met the trail crew supervisor, Tom Blackstock. He was a burly Army Reserve sergeant as well as a seasonal worker with the park service. Word was that he ran his crew like a military unit, although today it looked more like a chain gang. The seven youths rhythmically hacked at the rock with sledgehammers and shovels.

She made it a point to stand clear of the flying rock chips while she announced herself. “Yo, trail crew!”

The closest youth stopped working to stare at her. Then the others fell silent as well. Blackstock peered around his workers. “Hi, little lady! Come to pay us hardworkin’ guys a visit?”

She decided to ignore the “little lady” bit, just this once. “A short visit. I wanted to talk to you all about Lisa Glass.”

From beneath his bushy brows, Blackstock gave her a skeptical look. “Why’d they send you?”

“When I was sitting with her in the hospital, Lisa said some things that didn’t make much sense. We were hoping you’d be able to help.” She hoped he wouldn’t ask who else was included in the “we.”

Blackstock leaned his shovel against the side of the cliff. “Good a time as any for lunch break, guys. Grab your bags and meet under the cedar.” He nodded toward a massive red-barked evergreen that spiked up from a group of boulders fifty feet below them.

Sam climbed down and straddled one of the sun-warmed boulders, leaving the shade under the overhanging boughs for the trail builders. It couldn’t be more than seventy degrees out, but they were sweating. As a short muscular youth passed, Sam noted with surprise the protrusion of breasts under the damp T-shirt. That’s right, Mack
had
mentioned two females on the trail crew.

The workers arranged themselves around Sam, catching quick glances at her out of the corners of their eyes as if they feared trouble if they examined her directly. None looked older than twenty. The still air was thick with the smell of sweat. She was glad she’d left her own lunch three miles downhill in her truck.

Blackstock removed his hard hat and lowered himself onto a flat rock across from Sam, their knees almost touching. He pulled a mashed sandwich and a thermos out of a tattered daypack. “How’s Lisa doing?”

“Her head was hurting her a lot this morning. And the burns on her face and body are pretty bad.”

“Do they know what happened?”

Sam shook her head. “It’s still not clear. That’s why I wanted to talk to you guys.”

The youths looked uncomfortable, their eyes shifting nervously as they chewed. Most of them had records; they probably worried they’d be blamed even if they’d committed no recent crimes.

Sam strove to reassure them. “Lisa seems confused, and we don’t know whether she can think clearly right now. I need to know what she was like; what you thought of her.”

She noticed that several pairs of eyes strayed to a thin-faced boy.

“Lisa was a good worker, had no trouble keeping up,” Blackstock volunteered. The group nodded in unison, still chewing.

“Did you all get along with her?”

Various gazes flicked back and forth among the group, many aimed at the same youth. Nobody spoke.

Sam smiled at the boy. “What’s your name?”

He peered at her from beneath his hard hat. As he tipped his head, gray eyes under thick brows, a sunburned face, and a thin nose emerged into the sunlight. “Rosen. Ben Rosen.” The kid needed a shave: about two days’ growth of beard peppered his narrow cheeks and chin. A silver skull earring dangled from one lobe.

“Why does everyone keep looking at you?”

Ben grinned, revealing a chipped front tooth. “Lisa didn’t like me much.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged, his eyes now focused on the sandwich in his hand as if trying to determine what it contained.

A youth with a sparse mustache and ponytail spoke up. “Ben was always hittin’ on her.”

Ben waved his sandwich at his accuser. “No more than I hit on any other girl.”

“I can vouch for that,” the girl said. “He’s always hitting on me, too.” She’d taken off her hard hat. Her auburn hair was very short, almost a buzz cut. But despite this and her unisex work clothes, she oozed sexuality. The top of a tattoo was visible in the vee of her T-shirt. She jerked a thumb toward a blond-haired boy sitting behind her. “Jason here hits on me, too.”

“And on Lisa?”

The blond boy stared back defiantly. “Of course.”

Something going on there, Sam thought. “Did Lisa get along with you, Jason?”

“She liked me just fine,” he retorted.

Judging by the glare that passed from Ben to Jason, Sam guessed that Jason’s last statement was true.

“Maya! Jason!” Blackstock’s posture was stiff. He was clearly appalled at his crew’s revelations. “We can’t be—”

Sam interrupted the inevitable speech on politically correct behavior. “It’s okay. I want to hear the truth about Lisa.”

She asked them about Friday evening. Jason said that Lisa had left in her old junker after their shift ended.

“Know where she was headed?”

They all shook their heads.

“What do you know about her family, or her friends away from here?”

“She doesn’t talk,” Ben explained.

“Not even to me,” Maya threw in, “and we share a room.”

Jason snorted. “She thinks she’s too good for us.”

“Guys!” Blackstock objected again.

“She said she wanted to hear the truth,” Ponytail argued.

“Lisa acts all bougie because
she’s
never been in trouble,” Maya said. “Just because she’s working for money, not donating her time like we are.” She ran her fingers through her close-cropped hair.

“Bougie” was a new word for Sam, but she could deduce what the teenager meant by the context.

Maya continued. “When we go to town, she never even gets out of the truck. She wouldn’t be caught dead in public with us. That…girl is cold.”

Sam was sure that Maya would have used the word
bitch
had Blackstock not been present.

She stood up to leave. “Thanks, guys. One final question. I need a place to stay for the next three weeks. Is there a free bunk in your dorm? I remember an offer of one in May when I first got here.”

Blackstock scratched his head. “We got two extra bunks in the ladies’ room. Think Lisa will be back soon?”

Lisa’s burns and bruises loomed large in Sam’s memory. Even the medicinal odor came back. “I don’t think she’ll be back this season,” she said.

“Then I guess you can have your pick of three bunks. Right, Maya?” He turned to the red-haired girl.

Maya shrugged. “You couldn’t be any worse than her.”

JOE
Choi searched the knots of departing students for the red blouse that Lili had been wearing when she’d left the house that morning. He finally spotted a flash of scarlet. His daughter had tied the long-sleeved blouse around her waist and now sported only a tight tank top above her short jean skirt.

Was that his little girl? One hip thrust out like a model, her little black leather pack slung over one arm and a gym bag at her feet, Lili stood between Gale Martinson and a tall boy with an armload of books. She tossed her head back, laughed at something Martinson said. The boy laughed, too. Joe squinted. How old was that kid? The grades were confusingly mixed together in summer school. Martinson put a hand on Lili’s shoulder. Joe felt his chest tighten. Was that a friendly teacher’s touch, or something more?

“Lili!” Joe yelled out the open window.

She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun, spotted his truck, and frowned. Several kids glanced at him, then at Lili, who shouldered the gym bag and ran to the truck. Today she wore her hair loose, except for a red ribbon tied around her special charred lock of hair.

She reluctantly hauled herself up into the truck, shoving her gym bag onto the floor. “Why are you here, Dad?”

“Did you forget you’re meeting Aunt Summer this afternoon?”

“Of course not. But you’re not supposed to pick me up until two thirty; I was going to hang out with my friends.”

“The school was on my way to the office. You can hang out with me instead.”