Zero-Degree Murder (A Search and Rescue Mystery) (4 page)

CHAPTER

“C
OME
on! Let me in! I need to go!”

Gracie kneaded the steering wheel of her rust-pocked Ranger pickup. As far as she could see in both directions, a train of cars, minivans, and sport utes snaked bumper to bumper along the Boulevard, the main thoroughfare running the length of the valley.

Thirty million people within a three-hour drive of Timber Creek. And this weekend it seemed that every single one of those thirty million had negotiated the mountain roads up to the little resort town with the sole purpose of hindering Gracie’s progress to the Sheriff’s Office.

She sagged down in the seat, chewed a piece of grape bubble gum, and waited.

The town’s normal population of twenty thousand often ballooned to more than one hundred thousand for long holiday weekends. Which was precisely why Gracie normally hid out in her cabin the entire time, a reluctant box turtle emerging only in emergencies like a search or a craving for a venti Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino from the Safeway Starbucks.

Gracie popped a purple bubble and leaned over to crank up the London Symphony on the radio. She sank back in the seat and watched the traffic through half-closed eyes.

Sixty teeth-clenching seconds went by until finally a miniscule space opened up between a Ford Expedition and a white minivan that had slowed to a stop.

Gracie stomped on the gas. The pickup rocketed onto the Boulevard, then screeched to a standstill an inch from the Expedition’s bumper.

“Thank God for six cylinders.”

She laid her head back on the headrest and blew another bubble.

The Bavarian-style village of Timber Creek lay as a jewel in the mountains one hundred miles east of Los Angeles, six thousand feet higher and a world apart. In a single hour, one could drive the curving, precipitous highway up the mountain, leaving behind housing tracts, office buildings and strip malls, palm trees and labyrinthine freeways, breaking out of yellow air into azure skies and evergreens.

Gracie eased her foot off the brake and the Ranger inched forward.

Willow thickets hugged both sides of the road in a rich blend of yellows from brilliant cadmium to dull ocher. Christmas lights draped along fence posts and railings added glowing polka dots of red, blue, and green to the lengthening blue shadows. Gracie craned her neck and just caught a glimpse of the sparkling silver bracelet that was the lake itself. Beyond, the sun hovered, a golden glowing eye in the west.

Up ahead, a station wagon dragging a muffler turned left, suddenly clearing Gracie’s lane for the final quarter mile to the Sheriff’s Office.

She mashed the accelerator to the floor. The speedometer lunged to the right. Fifty. Fifty-five. She slammed on the brakes, turned into the Sheriff’s Office parking lot, and screeched to a stop. “What the—?”

The parking lot overflowed with reporters, cameras, lights, and television vans. Channel Four. Channel Seven. Channel Nine. KTLA. They were all there.

Gracie gaped at the spectacle until a car turned into the driveway behind her, nudging her out of her stupor.

Duly appreciative that someone had the foresight to cordon off a parking area for incoming search personnel, Gracie stepped on the gas and roared into an open space.

CHAPTER

T
IMBER
Creek Search and Rescue operated under the auspices of the County Sheriff’s Department and functioned out of the Sheriff’s Office—a long, two-story building painted bone white and trimmed in dark brown paint and pink stone.

Gracie shoved open the heavy reinforced-steel Employees Only door and clumped in, her heavy boots echoing down the narrow hallway leading into the bowels of the building. She pushed in through the door of the multipurpose squad room that served as the Search and Rescue briefing room.

Walls the color of vanilla pudding were crammed full of maps, bulletin boards, deputy cubbyhole in-boxes, and multiple doors leading to hallways, supply closets, and evidence storage. A chalkboard covered one entire wall and a waist-high shelf serving as a desk ran along three walls. In the center of the room was a twenty-foot-long conference table surrounded by a dozen butt-flattening wooden chairs.

The squad room’s only occupant was Ralph Hunter, who sat at the conference table reading a days-old L.A.
Times
. Behind half-moon glasses, the blue-gray eyes slid in her direction. “Hey, Gracie girl,” he said and winked at her.

Gracie beamed back at him. “Hi, Ralphie.” She leaned across the table to scribble her name on the callout roster, “Long time, no see.”

Ralph’s hair was silver, worn bristle-brush short, yet his heavy eyebrows were black. He was lean and fit, a good six inches taller than Gracie’s five foot eight, and, at forty-eight, twelve years older. His skin was the color and texture of well-worn saddle leather from too many days without sunscreen in the California sun. Gracie found him undeniably sexy.

As ever, Ralph looked immaculate—clean-shaven, uniform shirt Martha Stewart perfect, with every crease ironed to a razor’s edge. His bearing—chin and shoulders back, spine ramrod straight—hinted of a past military stint longer than a single tour of duty. The one time Gracie had seen him without a shirt, she had noticed several oddly shaped scars on his neck and shoulder, and one, about six inches long, running down one side of his abdomen. She had never dared ask him where he had gotten them and he had never volunteered the information.

After the death of his wife, it had taken two years for Ralph’s eyes to crinkle with humor if something amused him, five for him to actually chuckle at one of Gracie’s lame jokes. But even before Eleanor’s death, Gracie had never heard him laugh outright. It hurt her with a physical pain to see such indelible sadness in his blue-gray eyes.

Gracie tossed her gum into the nearest wastebasket and dropped into the chair at the end of the conference table closest to Ralph. As the only woman on an eleven-member team, she grabbed the psychological advantage whenever she could.

Ordinarily ten men to one woman might be a to-die-for ratio. But more often than not, Gracie found working in close proximity with so many Manly Men for so many hours, often days at a time, took its toll on her. She could take only so much crotch arranging, and fart and blond jokes before she began to crave a bubble bath or painting her toenails petunia pink.

“Missed you for turkey and dressing,” Ralph said, folding the pages of the newspaper back. “Eleanor’s sister outdid herself this year.”

Gracie sucked in a breath between her teeth. “Sorry. I really meant to come.”

Ralph looked at her over his glasses.

“I did! It’s just . . .” She stopped. “Okay, I should have called. Will you tell Eleanor—shit—Eleanor’s sister I’m really sorry I didn’t call?”

“Gracie, it’s not a problem. We just didn’t want you to be alone today.”

“I . . .”
Wanted to be alone
is what she almost said. She stopped because she wasn’t in the mood for another lecture. She eased the subject toward more comfortable territory. “So what’s all the hoopla outside?”

“Rob Christian got himself lost on San Raphael.”

“Who?”

“Rob Christian.”

Gracie made a face and shook her head.

“Rob Christian. Actor. Movie star.”

“Rob . . .” Gracie said. “Vaguely familiar.” Comprehension dawned. “Ohhhh, yeah. A Brit, right? Way too cute for anybody’s good?” She grimaced as the information sank in. “That’s who we’re looking for? Hell’s bells.” Gracie slumped down in her chair. So. They were searching for one of the biggest movie stars in the country, maybe the world, and the sum total of her presearch grooming had been waving a dry toothbrush in the general direction of her teeth and smoothing her hair back into an elastic. Period.

She leaned forward again. “Who else called in?”

“Cashman.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Everyone else who stayed up the hill either called in or was called?”

“Everyone.”

Before Gracie had time to groan, Steve Cashman burst into the room.

At thirty-one years old, the man’s personal hygiene ran neck and neck with a five-year-old’s, with the five-year-old pulling ahead. As usual he appeared as if he had stepped out of bed and right into the squad room. His blaze-orange uniform shirt was as wrinkled as aluminum foil that has been wadded up and reflattened. Greasy blond hair stood out in porcupine-quill spikes. Darker beard looked as if it hadn’t been trimmed since
last
Thanksgiving. And Gracie never got used to the sight of his fingernails—permanently oil-stained and longer than hers.

But hygiene wasn’t really the issue. Five years on the team with Steve Cashman had proven to Gracie that, if left to his own devices, the man could single-handedly screw up a perfectly good search.

Cashman slid into the chair on Gracie’s left and leaned in toward her. “Hey, beautiful.”

Gracie leaned way right, resting her cheek on her open palm. “Hey, Steve.”

“Guess who the MisPer is.”

“Rob Christian.”

“Not just Rob Christian.
The
Rob Christian! I can’t believe it!” He pounded his fists on the table, making Gracie jump and almost forcing her to strangle him.

“Cashman, get me a refill, will you?” Without looking up, Ralph slid his coffee mug across the table. “Four creams. Two sugars.”

“Sure!” Steve leapt to his feet, sending his chair skidding back to crash against the wall. Snatching up the mug, he bounded out of the room. The door slammed, fluttering memos pushpinned to a nearby bulletin board.

Gracie laid her cheek down on the table’s smooth cool surface. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

“Three out of eleven,” she said. “Pretty pathetic turnout even for a holiday. Most people will have finished eating by now. Maybe they’re too stuffed to show up. Or maybe they’ve had too much to drink. Or maybe I’m just jealous that they have lives.”

Ralph’s response was another look over the top of the glasses.

“Don’t say it.” Gracie grabbed the Sports section of the
Times
and glanced down at the page. Instantly bored, she flipped it back onto the table. “Rush, rush, rush to get here. Then sit on your hands and wait.” She picked a piece of gum from her shirt pocket, unwrapped it, and tossed it into her mouth. She flicked the wrapper into the wastebasket. “Two points.”

The room felt close and warm. Gracie was dressed for a nighttime expedition at altitude in late autumn, not for sitting in a stuffy room in an overheated building. She unbuttoned her shirt cuffs and shoved the sleeve layers up her arms. “Hot in here.”

She drummed her fingertips on the tabletop and blew a giant bubble, popping it loudly and drawing yet another look from Ralph. “Sorry,” she whispered and tapped her toes inside her boots instead.

Normally before a search the squad room was an ant farm of activity—team members copying maps, strategizing, assigning teams and radios, readying vehicles and equipment. “What’s going on?” Gracie asked unable to sit still and be quiet any longer. “What are we waiting for?”

“Briefing,” Ralph said.

“Really. It must be downright nippy in hell,” she said and was pleased to receive a crinkling of the blue-gray eyes.

The squad room door bumped open and Cashman crept in, balancing a coffee mug filled to the brim with what looked like beige mud. He eased it onto the table in front of Ralph.

“Thanks, Cashman.”

“Sure thing, Hunter.” Cashman skipped around behind Gracie to drag his chair back up to the table and drop into it. “Hey, Gracie—”

The squad room door banged open again and Gracie swallowed her gum.

Three backs straightened, three pairs of eyes tracked Sergeant Ron Gardner as he strode around the table to the opposite end from where the team sat.

Gracie’s toes curled at the sight of the man. Six-foot-two. Porcine facial features. Buzzed red hair. Beefy, hairless arms. Putty gray uniform shirt filled to overflowing by a barrel chest. If she had tried, Gracie couldn’t have invented a better caricature of a grade-school bully all grown up. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that, as a kid, Ron Gardner had shoved the littler kids into rain puddles and picked the wings off butterflies. As an adult, he was belligerent and condescending. From the first instant she had laid eyes on him, Gracie hadn’t liked him. And she had more than a sneaking suspicion that the feeling was mutual.

“Captain Harter would like to acknowledge the sacrifice you all are making by being here today,” Gardner announced too loudly for the enclosed room.

All three of us
, Gracie thought and resisted the temptation to plug her ears.

“As you may know, a film is being shot in the valley,” Gardner boomed. “A lot of the cast and crew stayed up here over the holiday weekend. Apparently a lot of them are English or some other kind of foreigner and don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.”

Neither do some Americans.
Gracie drew a pencil and little spiral notebook from the breast pocket of her shirt.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cashman glance over at her, then pull out his own little notebook.

“From what we can tell, Mr. Rob Christian—with whom no doubt you are very familiar . . .”

Gracie stared straight ahead.

“. . . and an undetermined number of others of the cast and crew went hiking this morning from the Aspen Springs trailhead. San Raphael Wilderness Area. At some point, the group had lunch, then separated. Most of the group returned to the trailhead while others, Mr. Christian included, elected to continue up the trail. It should be noted that during this time an unknown quantity of alcohol was consumed. Only physical description we have so far is of Mr. Christian. Age thirty-three. Six-three. One ninety. Blond over brown.”

Three pencils scribbled down the information.

“When the smaller hiking party failed to return by the original rendezvous time, the group at the trailhead waited another hour or so, then drove down to where they had cell phone reception, at which time they called their producer, who then called us. That’s it.”

“Number of MisPers?” Gracie asked.

“Undetermined.”

“Aviation up?” Ralph asked.

“Too windy. The responding deputy is interviewing the RPs.” Reporting Parties. “I want trackers up there yesterday.”

“Oh, goody,” Gracie whispered.

“Hunter. Ops. Set up a command post at the trailhead.”

“Roger, Roger,” Ralph said.

Gracie’s eyes slid over to meet Ralph’s. He knew she found it amusing that higher-ups found it necessary to order the team to do things they did countless times when those same higher-ups weren’t around.

Ralph kept his eyes front and center.

“Cashman, Kinkaid, Tracking Team One,” Gardner said.

Gracie sagged back in her chair. Even though she should have anticipated being paired up with Cashman, whatever enthusiasm she had for the search crashed and burned at the prospect of working with the man for the entire evening. Searches could be exhausting in themselves. But the yank and pull of preventing Steve from bungling an entire operation could just plain wear her out.

“Cashman, Team Leader,” the sergeant announced.

Gracie’s cheeks flamed. Ralph’s exaggerated clearing of his throat was the only thing that stopped her from snapping her pencil in two and hurling the jagged pieces at Gardner’s head. By all rights she should be the team’s leader. She had more seniority and more experience than Steve, and she possessed a State of California certification in tracking, which Cashman did not. But there was one thing Cashman had that Gracie didn’t: testicles. To Ron Gardner, that made all the difference.

One time in her Search and Rescue career, Gracie had gotten sick and hadn’t been able to complete a mission. No matter that it was a recovery from the charred remains of a plane crash where the only recognizable portion of the pilot’s body was a pristine pair of hands. No matter that she had proven herself on every other mission before and after. She was a woman and she hadn’t carried her weight. In Gardner’s eyes, nothing Gracie could do would ever make up for it.

“Shit pot of reporters out there,” Gardner continued as he walked back around the table. “No one talks to the media. We have a PIO for that.” He grabbed the door handle.

Three chairs scraped back.

Gardner turned around. “Hear me, people,” he said.