Lost Dog (A Gideon and Sirius Novel Book 3) (17 page)

Ranger Riley Ramsey looked like a triathlete. She had short blonde hair, was about forty, and was impossibly fit. She probably looked forward to her annual physical and hearing the results of her body mass index.

We shook hands. Her firm handshake didn’t surprise me. “Do you want me to call you Ranger, Riley, or Ramsey?” I asked.

“Anything works for me,” she said, and then gave a head jerk toward Sirius. “What’s the story with the dog?”

“Meet my partner, Sirius,” I said.

The ranger looked skeptical, but that was before Sirius decided to charm her with an extended paw, an “Aw shucks” roll of his head, and his earnest eyes. We were in like Flynn.

“I noticed Langston Walker’s signature in your register,” I said. “Was a ranger here when he signed in?”

Ranger Riley answered my question while running her fingers through Sirius’s fur. “I’m afraid he came through when no one was here,” she said. “We’ve been dealing with budget cuts for the last few years, and having someone working this desk full-time was one of the casualties.”

“So signing in is voluntary?”

“The wilderness permits are free, so there’s no reason not to get one.”

“But anyone could bypass this office and continue on the Skyline Trail without signing in, right? Or with no one here, they could sign in with a false name, couldn’t they?”

My questions seemed to surprise her, and she stopped scratching Sirius. “Why would anyone do that?”

“I’m just offering up some hypothetical situations.”

“If we caught someone without a wilderness permit hiking on trails where it was required, then they’d face a potential fine. But you’re right that unless a ranger was here, they could sign in with a fake name.”

“Or they could just take a wilderness permit without signing in?”

She shrugged. “I suppose so.”

“Since the permits are left out for anyone to take, isn’t it also possible that during a previous visit someone could have picked up a spare permit and used it on a later occasion?”

“There would be nothing to prevent that, assuming a date hadn’t already been filled in,” she said. Then she added with a defensive tone, “But I still don’t get why anyone would want to do that.”

“Are there security cameras on the trails?”

“There’s the Tram Cam that shows the Long Valley Ranger Station.”

“Would that be easy to avoid?”

“It wouldn’t be hard,” she admitted.

“Can you get to the Skyline Trail from above? Is there a road from Idyllwild?”

“There’s supposed to be a dirt road of sorts, but from there it would require a long hike to the trail.”

But someone who was motivated,
I thought,
could have bypassed the ranger station
.

“Did you take photos of Detective Walker when you came upon him?”

“I took a dozen pictures or so, but Officer Daniels took more.”

I consulted my notes and saw that Daniels was with the Palm Springs Police Department.

“And Daniels made the call that it was an accidental death?”

She nodded.

“So a crime-scene technician didn’t come and look at Walker’s body?”

“Officer Daniels took pictures and videos. I heard him consulting with others. It was his conclusion, and one I agreed with, that Detective Walker fell and hit his head. You could see where he’d slipped in the snow, and there was blood on the rock just to the right of the trail.”

“I’d like you to email me what pictures you have,” I said, handing her my business card. “I’ll be making the same request of Officer Daniels.”

“It sounds like you think there’s something suspicious about Detective Walker’s death.”

“I wouldn’t say that. But detectives are big believers in the Missouri motto: ‘Show me.’ I need to be sure his death was accidental.”

“Were you born in Missouri?”

I shook my head. “I’m an L.A. native. You’d think we would have a city motto, but we don’t, unless you count, ‘Shop until you drop,’ or ‘No one walks in L.A.’”

“Well, we’re going to need to walk,” she said, “and climb. We’ll be traversing about fifteen hundred feet up. That’s where Detective Walker was found.”

“Was he still climbing up to the summit when he died, or was he coming back down?”

“As far as we can determine, he never made it to the summit and was still on his way up.”

It seemed silly on my part, but I was sorry to hear that Langston hadn’t reached his goal.

“Ready to rock and roll?” asked Ramsey.

“I can do without the rock part,” I said.

Ranger Ramsey was a great tour guide, and I was lucky that she did most of the talking. That saved her from having to hear my gasping.

We were over an hour into our hike, and I was feeling spent. The two of us had climbed past huge boulders and made our way through rock formations. Pine trees provided handholds along the route. The higher we climbed, the more elusive oxygen seemed, and the colder it got. We crossed over a stream that came from melting snow, and had to deal with dripping water and muddy areas.

“It’s been relatively warm the last two days,” the ranger said. “On the day the detective was hiking, there was snow and ice on this trail from the previous night.”

My admiration for Walker’s fortitude had grown with each step. Hiking more than ten thousand feet up isn’t for the faint of heart or weak of limb. I was getting a small taste of what he’d experienced, and I felt like waving a white flag. My too-fit ranger must have noticed that.

“It’s not very far,” she promised.

“That’s good,” I said. “Sirius is clearly exhausted.”

My partner was clearly
not
exhausted, and Ranger Riley laughed. “I’ve heard climbing C2C means going up the equivalent of more than a thousand flights of stairs.”

“Do you have any idea how many climbers were on this trail on April fifteenth?” I asked.

“I haven’t done a tally,” she said, “but I do know on this upper ascent, there were a lot fewer hikers than usual. It was a weekday, and the weather from the day before kept a lot of people from attempting the summit.”

“Especially unprepared hikers without crampons,” I said.

“Or microspikes or even ice axes,” she said.

“Was Langston carrying an ice ax?” I asked.

She shook her head. “He had hiking poles similar to what you have.”

Ranger Ramsey had provided me with two adjustable poles. I hated to admit it, but the poles had saved me from slipping in several spots. She was also right about my footwear. My basketball shoes were wet through and through, and I’d be surprised if a few blisters weren’t developing.

“Smell the butterscotch?” she asked.

“I thought I was going crazy,” I said. “I’ve been smelling butterscotch on and off since we started hiking.”

“It’s the Jeffrey pine trees,” she said, pointing one out.

“Does the Peaks Restaurant serve butterscotch sundaes?” I asked. “I have a sudden hankering for one.”

“I don’t think it’s on their menu.”

“All this subliminal seduction going on, and they don’t even take advantage of it.”

A gust of cool wind blew, almost enough for me to say, “Brrr.” The ranger also took note of the wind. “On the day your friend was climbing, there was some strong gusting. That might have contributed to his fall.”

Walker had been climbing a slippery trail on a day when it was windy and icy. I was almost convinced I was wasting my time.

“Do you know if your friend ever hiked the other saints?” she asked.

“What saints are those?”

“In Southern California, climbers always talk about the Three Saints,” she said. “This is Mount San Jacinto. The other two are San Antonio and San Gorgonio.”

I found myself smiling. “One saint was enough for Langston,” I said. “He always did his climb on the anniversary of his son’s death. That’s why he was here that day.”

“I see,” she said, and then added, “He was older than most of the climbers who come up here. This trail isn’t forgiving, as you can see. Hikers have succumbed to high temperatures and dehydration. And on the opposite end, there have been cases of hypothermia. Slipping and going down an ice chute killed one man. Since 2009 there have been at least five deaths, and I can’t tell you how many climbers we’ve had to helicopter out.”

“As long as I’m not one of them,” I said.

“We found Detective Walker right around this turn,” she said.

There was no yellow police tape setting off the area. Despite that, I approached the spot as I would have any active crime scene.

The turn to the right led to another switchback turn going upward to the left. A series of rocks, both big and small, lined both sides of the trail. Just steps off the trail were boulders and pine trees. If this had been a John Ford western, foreboding music would have swelled. This spot was perfect for an ambush. The bad guy could have emerged from behind a boulder or a tree.

Ranger Ramsey showed me where Walker had been found, and pointed out the rock where he had supposedly hit his head. I listened to what she said and studied the rock, but I was more interested in the boulder just to the right of the trail.

If I was looking at a crime scene, it was contaminated beyond redemption. Detective Walker’s body had brought a number of individuals to the scene who, combined with all the hikers who’d come afterward, had left various footprints everywhere. The melting snow and ice had left the area a muddy mess.

I used my hiking poles to help me get up and around the boulder. Anyone could have hidden behind it. I found the best spot to see from while staying out of sight. In my mind I choreographed how I would go about ambushing someone. There were several possibilities. I could emerge from the boulder as Langston was passing and attack from behind. Or I could wait for him to come abreast with the boulder and jump out, striking at his blind side. As I considered potential angles of attack, I also thought about the best way of taking my victim out. By pushing off from the boulder, I could increase the force of my bludgeoning.

Returning to the trail, I walked the likeliest path that Langston would have taken. It didn’t take any stretch of the imagination to come up with several scenarios in which he could have easily been murdered. A blow from a blackjack or a rock to the temple might have been enough to kill him. Then his body could have been positioned with his head on, or near, the jutting rock his head appeared to have struck during the fall.

The ranger watched my movements. She could see my murderous choreographing and how I was imagining death scenarios quite different from the fall she had assumed. She looked uneasy. I didn’t much like these thoughts myself. I had hoped my visit to the mountain would dispel any qualms I had about Walker’s death. Unfortunately, it hadn’t.

I took some pictures and asked some questions. And then we walked back down the mountain toward the tram that would take me home. Our descent was much quieter than our ascent, my dark thoughts proving contagious.

CHAPTER 23

THE MANY VOICES IN THE DARKNESS

After being held for days, after being subjected to physical and mental torture, Heather finally heard her abductor. But he was playing games with his voice by using some kind of amplifier, or shifter, to broadcast his words. It was like a bludgeon on her eardrums.

“Beg me to spare your life!”

A single light speared Heather’s vision. The burka’s mesh wasn’t enough to spare her eyes after long hours in the darkness. But the light wasn’t as invasive as the voice. The voice was loud and alien, the kind you’d expect to hear in old science fiction films. Would Emilio go to such lengths? He had always liked his toys.

“Who are you?” she asked.

The voice changed, becoming deeper and more powerful.

“I am he who you will worship.”

“I only worship God,” she said.

“I am your God!” The room shook as he roared. “Do you ever want to see the sun again? I hold your life in the balance. If you have any hope of staying alive, you will do as I say.”

Heather didn’t answer. As much as she wanted to challenge the voice, she knew that wouldn’t help her current situation. She had to play for time and find a way out.

“You are a piece of shit,” said the voice. “You pretend that you’re special, but all you are is a waste. A trailer-park slut. I want to hear you say that. I want you to confess that to me with your legs spread. I want you to feel your body the way I felt it. Now strip out of that body bag you’re wearing!”

Heather made no move to take off her clothing.

“Don’t fuck with me!” The bass must have been turned to maximum. His curse was thunderous, and brutal enough to make Heather flinch.

“You try and act all prim and proper, but that’s not what you are. You groaned when I did you. You wanted it.”

“I was unconscious when you raped me.”

“That’s not what your body said. It welcomed me inside of you. It showed what a whore you are.”

“You drugged me and raped me.”

Heather didn’t want to be afraid, but she was. The burka kept him from seeing that she was trembling.

“Worship me now and I might spare you. Beg for your life. And you’d better be creative.”

She wasn’t sure what to say. She was afraid of her voice failing her. “It’s h-hard for me to think right now after being d-doped up.” Her breaths were hurried, but the oxygen didn’t seem to be reaching her.

The voice changed, taking on a sibilant, oily quality. “Maybe you need an incentive. Is that what you want? You’d make good target practice. You want an apple, Eve? I could put one on your head and try and shoot it off.”

And then the voice changed again, into an accent that sounded as if it came from the Middle East: “Or is it death by stoning that you want? It happens more often and in more places than you would think. Whole villages like to join in. Everyone from elders to boys take part. That’s the price paid for disobedience. That’s what happens to whores. Maybe we should play sticks and stones? Is it time to break your bones? Bitch!”

He spat out the last word.

“And don’t think if I choose sticks instead of stones you’ll get off lightly. I will light the sticks on fire before tossing them.” His accent changed again; now he sounded Indian. “You ever hear of bride burning? It’s been going on in India for some time. When a husband isn’t happy with the dowry that’s paid, he decides to get rid of his wife. His family helps with the fun. They douse the wife with kerosene and then set her on fire. And then she’s an ex-wife.”

Emilio had come from an Old World family, Heather knew. His mother had always waited upon his father. But as Heather had explained to him on numerous occasions, she worked a demanding job. Emilio’s mother hadn’t worked outside the home.

“And it’s only a matter of time before the world rediscovers suttee. What an enlightened insurance policy that was. The husband didn’t have to worry about his wife plotting against him, because when he died, his wife burned with him. ‘Until death do us part.’ Didn’t you say those words, bitch?”

“Why are you doing this to me?” she cried.

The voice changed again. Now it sounded like an atonal robot. “Are you ready to play sticks and stones? I think I’ll warm up with a few fast ones. Maybe you’ll catch one in the eye. That mutt of yours got one there, didn’t she? You can be just like her. That’s what the two of you are good for: target practice.”

The voice shifter couldn’t hide his anger. Heather could hear it even through the electronic distortion. Who other than Emilio would know about Angie’s having been maimed by a rock? A lump rose in her throat. Angie had learned to love and trust her, but if she didn’t come back, Angie would think she’d abandoned her.

“It’s up to you. Do we play sticks and stones? Or do you perform a striptease for me? And in the end, emphasis on the end, I want you to present to me like one of those apes in heat. I want you to show me what you really are.”

Life or death, Heather decided. That was her choice. She felt sick. She could either buy time or give up. How much more could she take?

Emilio had always said he wasn’t a brute. But maybe she’d misjudged him. What if that was just the tip of the iceberg? What if he was a monster?

With trembling fingers, Heather began removing her burka.