Shelf Ice (16 page)

Ray led the way, taking the first turn at breaking the trail. He settled into a comfortable rhythm with the snowshoes and poles moving forward in an almost mechanical precision. From time to time he would stop and listen—only the sound of wind high in the trees and the distant cawing of crows. As they neared their destination, a Coast Guard helicopter came over low and fast heading toward the big lake, the slapping of its blades and the roar of its engine shattering the near silent forest. Ray stood and waited for several minutes, until the sound was little more than a distant echo, then pushed forward again.

Ray was still several hundreds yard from their destination when he had a sense of foreboding. And afterward, when he ran the tape of his memories again, he couldn’t find a hint of what put him on edge.

The air was crisp, the sky clear, and the snow a pristine blanket, individual crystals sparkling like diamonds on the rolling terrain.
 
Ray stopped, signaling the others to do the same. He stood for several minutes, catching his breath and listening as he surveyed the landscape. Again, just the wind high in the trees, the conifers gently swaying, the maples and ash bare and still months away from new plumage, the oaks clinging to a few leathery-brown remnants of last year’s foliage.

He slowly started forward again, his senses keen to any sound or movement. Ray was almost to the base of the tree when he first noticed the blood, a splattering pattern on the perimeter, a pooling at the center, crimson against white on the snow directly under the tree house. He stopped and gazed at the structure above. He pulled a pair of compact binoculars from an inner pocket and glassed the branches and underside of the nest. He could see the congealed liquid glistening on the branches, frozen droplets shaped by the gravitational pull, poised for their flight to earth.

He signaled for his colleagues to come forward.

“Oh my God!” said Sue as she stood at Ray’s side and observed the scene.

“Looks like someone heard your joke.”

Brett joined them and stood silently.

“What do we do now?” asked Sue.

“Got your camera?”

“Yes,” Sue answered. She pulled off her pack and retrieved a camera from the interior. Ray and Brett held their positions as she carefully recorded the scene.

“Where do you think the shooter stood?”

“Here or a few feet back up the trail. The three of us probably marched over their tracks,” Ray answered.

Ray turned to Brett, “Can you climb up there and see what’s happened?”

“No problem.”

“Anything we need to protect down here?” Ray asked Sue.

“No, I don’t think so. We should search for brass, but we can do that later. Brett, take some rubber gloves. Once you’re up there we’ll figure out how to go forward without disturbing the scene.”

Using a slingshot, it took three attempts before Brett successfully lobbed the weighted end of a thin nylon line over a large branch near the top of the tree. Using that line, he pulled his climbing rope, a two-inch thick piece of braided Manila, over the branch and back to earth. He secured it to the base of a nearby tree, and then started toward the top of the tree, hands and feet working together in a skillfully coordinated exercise that quickly moved him to the top of the tree.
 
He then climbed toward the structure, disappearing momentarily.

“You won’t believe this,” he shouted down.

“What did you find?”

“Come on up and take a look.” Brett tossed down a rope ladder that nearly reached the ground.

“Is there room for both of us?” Ray asked.

“Yes, you just have to be careful.”

“Why don’t you go, Ray. I don’t like heights.”

Ray was startled. Sue always seemed fairly undaunted by physical challenges. He released the straps on his snowshoes and slowly ascended the ladder. Brett gave him a hand at the top and helped him onto the platform. Ray stood and viewed the surrounding country. From this perch he could see out onto the big lake and north to the dunes. He paused for a moment to take in the magnificent view. Then he knelt at Brett’s side and looked through the open door of the skillfully crafted structure. The interior was lit by a series of windows, porthole-like in design.
 
The sun reflected off the walls and ceiling of pine. Centered on the floor was a large flattened garbage bag, a bloodstained white tie at the end. Blood was splattered around the interior, on the walls and ceiling. Near the wall at the far end was a tightly rolled sleeping bag and a small stove with a hose running to a propane canister and a candle lantern, hydration bag, and a few pots. There was a small stack of paperback books at the far northeast corner. Ray had to control his curiosity, his need to climb through the gore to find out what Tristan had been reading.

Ray turned to Brett. “We need to get Sue and her camera up here.”

As Ray descended the rope ladder, he could see Sue waiting near the base of the tree.

“What did you find?” she asked while he was about half way down.

“It’s a crime scene,” he said. “You’ve got to get up there with your camera. Brett will help you get on the platform. It’s very secure up there. You’ll have no problem.

Sue looked at him with a doubtful expression. He stood holding the ladder and he continued to keep it from swaying as she climbed.

Five minutes later she was on the ground, smiling. “Best crime scene I’ve ever done. No body. And it’s incredible up there.”

“What do you want me to do now?” Brett called from the aerie.

“Do you need anything else up there?” Ray asked Sue.

 
“I’d like to dig a few of the slugs out of the ceiling. We need to get some of the blood down, and we need a garbage bag to put the perforated one in. I’ll have to go to my jeep to get the extra things, ” Sue replied.

“We’ll be back,” Ray shouted up to Brett.

“Take your time,” Brett responded.
 

25.

“Well, this is a strange development,” said Sue, as she came up for air from her container of sesame chicken.

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro,” said Ray, pausing over tofu and vegetables.

“Who said that again?” questioned Sue.

“Richard Nixon.”

“You’re kidding,” said Sue.

“Yes,” he said, enjoying his own joke.
 
“It was Hunter Thompson, but he was probably thinking about Nixon at the time.”

“You don’t think Laird could have heard me when I joked about putting a few rounds into his loft as a way of seeing if he was up there?”

“No. There was a fair amount of wind noise yesterday, and we were talking softly. And I don’t think Tristan was up there. It was more about our trail in and out.”

“I don’t think I quite follow.”

“Trying to put together what Molly’s been telling us. Let’s go with the assumption that Tristan was somewhere near Brenda’s place on the night of the attack. And let’s also assume that Tristan saw the assailant and vice versa. Tristan is now on the run, but we assume he’s still in the area. Sunday I hiked into his place, leaving tracks. Yesterday we checked out the tree house. What’s he thinking, especially if he’s reasonably fearful?

“Again, accepting Molly’s view of his suspicious nature, he’s thinking that someone is out to kill him too.

“And Molly told us that he’s mostly nocturnal and that he roams his territory like a wild animal. We have to assume that he knows that someone checked out his trailer and then his tree house.
 
He also knows that while few people would have the skills to get access to his tree house, they’d have no trouble killing him by pumping a dozen rounds into the place. And if the shooter stood around for a few minutes and waited for some blood to start seeping out of the place, they would have been convinced they killed Tristan.”

“And this could have worked to his advantage in several ways,” said Sue, starting to run with Ray’s thinking. “It would get the hunter off his back, and on the off chance that he might be out there plotting some kind of revenge or an offensive move, his adversary would be clueless.” Sue stirred her food with a plastic fork, finally spearing a piece of chicken. “How do we get our hands on him?” she asked, before popping the morsel into her mouth.

“You’re usually the good one at generating novel ideas.”

“I don’t know, Ray, I’ve just been in a funk lately. We’re so short staffed and the workload’s been so high all fall and winter.” Sue paused, her tone changed. “And I don’t have much life outside of the job. When I do get home, I just crash. I haven’t been going to my yoga class or hanging out with my friends. And as for men, well,” Sue paused midsentence. “But the sun today was terrific. Maybe it’s the grayness this time of year, that’s what gets to me, the lack of sun for weeks at a time.”

“Yes, it gets to me, too. And it’s been a difficult period for both of us.” Ray let his comment hang for a while, focused on his food. “How do we get to Tristan?”

“Well, our cell phone idea was a flop. I don’t think he’s planning on going back to his aerie anytime in the near future,” said Sue, closing her Styrofoam container and breaking the seal on a bottle of Diet Coke, pausing briefly, then twisting the cap off. “We could tweet him,” she suggested with a wry smile.

“I think at this point we can’t do much more about Tristan other than getting Molly’s full cooperation. If he contacts her, and she feels like cooperating with us, maybe she can bring him in. I’m afraid if we pursue him much more, he’ll just go deeper to ground.”

“The blood?”

“I’ve got a sample on the way to the State Police lab. Any bets?”

“I imagine he just collected another road kill. A deer would give him a pretty good quantity of blood.”

“What if it was human?” asked Sue.

“That would be an interesting turn of events,” said Ray coming to his feet and gathering up the food container and coffee cup. “Let’s hope things don’t become even more complex.”

26.

It was only a few minutes after seven when Ray got home, but he was feeling weary. He wished that it were late enough to just call it a day and go to bed, but if he allowed himself to get to sleep early, he knew that he would be wide awake at three.

He carefully arranged kindling in the fireplace and got a fire going. Then he boiled some water and made a pot of chamomile tea. He was settling down to read a copy of a new memoir by a poet that his local bookseller had recommended when headlights flashed across the window facing the drive. Seconds later came the sound of a car door being slammed shut. Ray unlocked and opened the front door. Hannah Jeffers entered in ski clothing.

“Could I talk you into hitting the slopes with me for a couple of hours this evening?” she asked, pulling off a knit hat.

“I haven’t been out yet this season. I bought a pass in June or July and haven’t even picked it up.” Ray looked at his watch. “By the time I find everything, and we drive there, the lift operators would be yelling last run. I’ve just made a pot of herbal tea, would you like a cup before you hit the slopes?”

“Are you sure I’m not imposing?”

“No, I’m happy to have the company.”

Ray moved the teapot to the kitchen table, and retrieved cups and saucers from a cupboard. He set these on the table, going back for spoons and a jar of local honey.

“I saw Saul this morning,” he said as he settled across from Hannah.

“How did that go?” she asked.

“The usual. I’m supposed to get more sleep, eliminate stress from my life, lose ten pounds, and yada yada yada.”

“Do you smoke?” she asked.

“No. Quit a long time ago.”

“Too bad.”

“Why’s that?”

“There are so many great diseases connected with smoking. It gives us a terrific chance to jazz up a physician/patient lecture. Excessive alcohol and abusing prescription drugs are also good triggers. And then there’s meth, crack and…”

“Do you see many of those?”

“No, not up here. Not like Detroit. Occasionally in the ER we see some serious overdoses. I gather the problem in this area is more with the abuse of prescription drugs. In the doctors’ lounge I hear stories about people shopping physicians looking for soft touches. You probably know more about it than I do.”

“It’s part of the environment now. From time to time we’ll get a flurry of activity and make some arrests. Then things will quiet down for a while, but it’s always going on.” Ray filled the cups and pushed the bottle of honey toward Hannah. “That’s local honey, star thistle, supposed to help your immune system with hay fever or something.”

“Does it?”

“Who knows,” said Ray. “But it tastes good, especially in tea. How did you end up in medicine?”

“My father was a surgeon, so was my grandfather. It just seemed the thing to do.”

“Do you have siblings?”

“No, I was an only child. How about you?”

“Same,” said Ray.

“How did you end up in the military?” Ray asked

“The army paid for a big part of my medical education. My military service time was paying back that obligation and getting additional training and experience. I was actually geeked up about going into a combat zone. I was going to get a whole lot of experience dealing with traumatic injuries.”