Hanging Falls Page 12

  “Let’s go, Robo,” she said, letting him lead the way. He hopped from rock to rock while she and Brody struggled up the cliff beside the waterfall. The cascade sprayed them with cold droplets, saturating her clothes by the time she made it to the top. The black hair on Robo’s back glistened with moisture.

  Runoff from yesterday’s rain had subsided, and tufts of grass now peeked through puddles. Mattie stepped carefully as she made her way down toward the lake’s edge, winding through fallen timber and deadfall. Robo trotted ahead, leading the way until she called him back. She huddled with her dog and Brody beside a pine that still looked healthy—its trunk thick and strong and its needles green—on a patch of relatively dry ground.

  “We might as well start here.” She shrugged off her backpack and hung it from a tree branch. As she scanned the terrain, she pointed to the swollen stream of water that rushed from the lake to plunge downward in the falls. “This is where I thought a body might wash out. I want to do a grid search in this area.”

  Brody grunted his agreement.

  Taking Robo’s blue nylon collar from her utility belt, she bent and unbuckled his everyday collar that he’d worn to travel up the mountain. This alone told him he was going to work, and he trotted around in excitement until she fastened the collar at his neck. Then he stood at her feet, looking up at her face, awaiting a command.

  She removed Robo’s collapsible bowl and filled it with water from her supply. It seemed strange to provide him with water when they were surrounded by it, but moistening her dog’s mucous membranes to enhance his scenting ability before an evidence search was a valuable part of their routine. Once he’d taken a few laps, she began to pat him and chatter in a high-pitched voice that revved up his prey drive.

  Bending to pat Robo’s side while he danced on his front paws in excitement, Mattie scoped out the terrain. She decided to put Robo on a long leash and run a grid that encompassed ten-foot sweeps near the edge of the rushing stream. Once they reached the end, she would turn her dog around and he would sweep another ten-foot-wide section, sniffing and looking for evidence as he went. Brody would follow doing a visual sweep.

  After receiving a nod from Brody indicating that he was ready, she led Robo downhill to the edge of the water and gave him the command she used for evidence detection. “Okay, Robo. Seek!”

  Robo put his nose to the ground and started quartering the area, his head moving back and forth. Mattie guided him gently, covering the strip of ground along the edge of her imaginary grid. She tried to stay on the grassy tufts but ended up slipping off into the muck more often than not. Soon her boots were caked with mud.

  They worked their way down sixty yards and then turned to head back, ten feet higher and moving into the trees. Brody turned and moved along with them, scanning the ground as they worked their way back.

  On the third pass, which ran deeper into the timber, Robo paused about halfway down, stuck his nose into a hole in the ground, and sat. Mattie’s pulse quickened as she bent to pet him. “What did you find?”

  A stunted spruce had toppled and now lay perpendicular to the water, its roots exposed. The entire area contained pits and depressions from uprooted trees, but this one looked slightly different, and Mattie wondered if it could have been their victim’s shallow grave. The hole that Robo indicated was small, about the size of a gopher hole, and something that would never have caught the human eye.

  Mattie knelt beside Robo, hugging him close and murmuring endearments near his ear while she scanned the sky, considering whether they should call in a forensic unit but deciding they didn’t have time. “It’s going to rain again soon, Brody. Don’t you think we should process this by ourselves?”

  Brody glanced at the heavy clouds. “Let’s do it.”

  They both took cell phones from their pockets and snapped photographs of the hole and the surrounding area while Robo sat and watched.

  “When this spruce went down, it could’ve exposed enough of the grave that the body could wash out.” Mattie lined up a shot that showed the proximity of the tree to the depression. “This might just be an air hole. We’ve either got another body or something that was buried with our victim.”

  Brody pulled a pair of latex gloves from his utility belt. “We’ll see.”

  The muddy ground made for easy digging, and a shovel wasn’t necessary. Brody removed the soil handful by handful, working to enlarge the hole as he dug deeper. Soon after he started, he rocked back on his heels. “I’ve hit something. Take a picture before I dig it out.”

  With Mattie snapping photos, he carefully excavated what looked like a piece of fabric, the color of which had been obliterated by mud. As he uncovered a wadded-up ball of the stuff, Mattie could see shades of blue peeking through the brown.

  “Is it a shirt?” she asked, thinking of the shirts worn by the men she’d met this morning. Blue chambray, white buttons.

  “I think so.” Brody leaned back. “One more shot of it, and I’m going to take it out.”

  After Mattie took the picture, Brody lifted the fabric free from the mud and slowly straightened it, laying it carefully on the muddy ground. When it took shape, they could see that it was indeed a shirt, and through the mud, some of the buttons glinted white.

  “This is the type of shirt the men wear at the place where Luke Ferguson was living,” Mattie said. “I’d bet money this came off our victim.”

  “I won’t bet against it, but we’d have a hard time proving that.”

  Mattie snapped a photo, and then Brody reached for one of the pockets. “I’m going to see if there’s anything in here that could be useful.”

  As he probed the pockets with gloved fingers, a look of satisfaction consumed his face. He pulled something out, letting what looked like a muddy chain lengthen and dangle from his fingers. There was some type of pendant on it.

  Mattie snapped a photo and leaned forward to examine it closely. It was one of those necklaces that teenage girls favored, a heart broken in half with a jagged edge down the middle. She felt a burst of adrenaline as she realized what it was. “I don’t want to wipe it off in case there are prints, but I think beneath the dirt it says BFF,” she said. “Best friends forever. It’s something girls wear at school. Someone else, a best friend, has the other half of the heart. This could lead to something, Brody.”

  Their eyes met while they shared a moment of silent celebration.

  A smile quirked one corner of Brody’s mouth. “Now all we gotta do is find the person with the other half.”

  TWELVE

  Mattie spent another hour searching the rest of the pine grove that lined the upper lake. As she and Robo moved higher up the drainage basin, the trees became thicker and the footing dryer, but her dog didn’t hit on anything else.

  She stopped to rest at the edge of the grove, her legs tired from scrambling over the rugged terrain and fallen timber. A rumble of distant thunder made her look up at the lowering clouds. “The storm’s moving in, Brody, and we’re done here. We’d better get to safer ground before the lightning sets in.”

  “Are you satisfied we’ve found everything we’re going to up here?”

  “I think so. I’ll let Robo travel off leash on the way down to the falls, and we’ll see if he hits on anything new.”

  Mattie unclipped Robo’s leash and told him to seek, flinging out her arm to encompass the area, and he took off. She and Brody followed, taking the middle ground while Robo hunted with his nose, working back and forth.

  Once they reached the trail beside the falls, Mattie officially signaled an end to the hunt, telling Robo what a good boy he was and taking off his evidence detection collar. After snapping on his everyday collar, she let him go out in front while they slid their way down the path. She was wet, cold, and muddy.

  Lightning began to crack up on the peaks they’d just left, and it began to sprinkle. Mattie led the way over to the pines before shrugging off her backpack and opening it to retrieve her raincoat while Brody f
ollowed suit.

  She’d been thinking of Tracy Lee Brown. Had he packed up and moved his tent already? Or was he staying put like he’d been told?

  “Brody, what do you say we hike over to Tracy Lee’s camp and see if he’s still there. It’ll only take an extra twenty minutes, and we can stay off the open parts of the trail where we might attract a lightning strike.”

  “All right. Won’t hurt to see if he plans to stick around.”

  As the sky opened up and poured on them, Mattie and Robo led the way down the trail until they reached the spot where they needed to cut across country. Despite the rainfall, they made fast progress going downhill.

  The campsite looked drab, wet, and deserted. Tracy Lee was nowhere to be seen. The tent had been taken down, and all his belongings were packed inside or lashed onto the outside of a backpack that rested against a tree trunk beside his fishing pole.

  As they made their way into the campsite, Mattie called out. “Hello! Tracy Lee, are you here?”

  No answer. She raised her brow at Brody. “I guess this answers the question about whether he plans to stick around or not.”

  A hinky feeling consumed her as she scanned the area for any sign of the man. He’d had no weapons at the time they’d left him, but he could have hidden a handgun out here somewhere. Brody placed his hand on the Glock he wore on his utility belt.

  Robo darted around the campsite, sniffing, which gave Mattie an idea. “Where’s Tracy Lee, Robo? Let’s find the bad guy.”

  Robo had tracked this man before, but he seemed to sort through various scents before he chose one to follow. With his nose to the ground, he trotted through the dripping forest, heading downhill. Mattie hurried after him, and Brody fell in behind.

  They’d traveled only about fifty yards when the hackles on Robo’s back rose, making Mattie’s neck prickle. This wasn’t exactly what she’d expected, since Robo knew Tracy Lee by this time, and his reaction set off her alarm system. “Tracy must be close,” she murmured to Brody. “Or someone else.”

  Brody drew his handgun and Mattie grabbed Robo’s collar, making him slow down. She walked beside him as he sniffed his way along the scent track, nose to the ground. Although she kept her eyes peeled, they came upon the horrible sight all at once. When Robo led her around a dense spruce tree, there it was, right in front of her.

  His boots inches off the ground, Tracy Lee Brown swung from a rope slung over a lower branch of a tall pine and tied to the trunk. Though it looked grisly, Mattie couldn’t take her eyes off his face. Above the knotted rope at his neck, his tongue protruded from his mouth and his eyes bulged, his skin purple and bloated.

  “Damn it to hell,” Brody muttered. “I didn’t see that coming.”

  Mattie hadn’t either, and a tremendous swell of anger and guilt washed through her. Tracy Lee’s hands were tied behind his back. There was no doubt this was a homicide. And she and Brody had left him out here to face a killer alone. “I had no idea his life was in danger.”

  “Shit, Cobb. He was packed up and ready to get the hell out of Dodge. He never said anything, but he must have been afraid. Why didn’t he ask for help?”

  “Maybe he was a part of Luke’s murder and his partner turned on him.” Mattie felt responsible for the man’s death, no matter what the circumstances. Rain dripped from the trees onto her hood. “It’s wet, but Robo can still track scent. We need to follow the person that left here and catch this guy.”

  “Wait a minute. You can’t take off half-cocked, Cobb.” Brody threw her a look that challenged argument as he shrugged off his backpack, unzipping it to access the satellite phone. “I’ll call this in and tell them to check the trailhead for vehicles. Then we need to process the scene as best we can while we wait for a recovery party.”

  Torn between her duties to this dead man—preserving his crime scene or tracking his killer—Mattie tried to think of a compromise. “Let’s photograph the scene and get him down from that tree. Then Robo and I should try to find a track and follow it as far as we can. With this amount of rain, the track could get washed out.”

  “You shouldn’t go without backup.” Brody narrowed his eyes at her, ending the discussion while he made the call.

  Mattie took out her cell phone to start taking pictures of the scene, conscious of the pressure from both the passing time and the falling rain. She felt she owed it to Tracy Lee to track down his killer. When Brody disconnected with the sheriff, she stated her case. “Robo and I are a team, Brody. We can handle tracking on our own. And we left this man alone and exposed. He deserves justice.”

  “Damn it, Cobb. Someone has to stay here.” Brody began to search the ground, which was covered with pine needles, cones, twigs, and branches, apparently looking for prints that would be hard to find here. “And there could’ve been more than one guy. In fact, there probably was.”

  She knew that having to wait while she and Robo tracked the killer was what bothered Brody most. He was a man of action and didn’t like to be the one left behind.

  Mattie hardened herself to the images while she framed shots of Tracy Lee’s body. “You’ll have to search for prints and work the scene before the rain washes everything away.”

  “Go ahead,” Brody said, sounding both disgusted and resigned. “I can handle this. Go see what you and Robo can find.”

  She nodded, pocketing her cell phone and reaching into her utility belt for Robo’s tracking harness. After rapidly changing out his equipment, she gave him a drink from his water bowl. She wanted to hurry and get away before Brody changed his mind.

  “Once I get a radio signal, I’ll check in at the station,” she said.

  “Maybe you should take the sat phone.”

  She thought about it for a brief moment. “No, you’ll need it to guide the others. I’ll be okay without it.”

  The chatter Mattie used to excite Robo worked its typical charm, making him dance and circle her legs. The soggy ground was perfect for trapping skin cells that a fugitive would slough off as he fled, and she thought the track would be fairly straightforward. “Robo, search! Let’s find a bad guy.”

  With his nose to the forest floor, Robo began to circle the crime scene, sorting through scents and then apparently rejecting them. She had begun to wonder whether she was wrong about the rain not having washed away the track yet when he pricked his ears and took a few steps forward, sniffing furiously. Within a few more steps, he seemed to vacuum up scent that led somewhere and began to follow it, an invisible track with an occasional footprint in the rocky soil.

  “There are some prints over here,” she called to Brody as she trailed her dog.

  “I’ll get them,” he called out to her. “Watch your back.”

  Mattie raised her free hand in farewell and then concentrated on Robo as he led her downhill and away from the tree. Hanging Falls would never be the same to her again.

  It was like trading a little slice of heaven for a big chunk of hell.

  * * *

  Robo led Mattie downhill for about a mile. Sometimes when the trail was especially rocky, he scrambled around, sniffing the soil and foliage as if he’d lost the track. But he always picked it up again, and Mattie knew that he was battling the elements as much as she was.

  The scent track led diagonally back to the main trail beside the river. When she left the shelter of the pines, rainfall pelted her shoulders and head. Her cold feet squished inside her saturated boots. Robo seemed less and less sure of himself, and she feared the rainfall had dispersed the scent, making it harder for him to detect.

  When they crested a rise that afforded a view of the downhill terrain, Mattie told him to wait. In this spot, the trail dropped off steeply and then traveled beside the river for a span, but the scene below had changed drastically since they’d hiked up earlier this morning.

  The river boiled and frothed over boulders as it tumbled to the curve where it typically flattened out and ran more sedately downhill. But not now. It had swelled beyond its b
anks and flooded the trail, pooling in an area at least one hundred yards across. Her heart sank as she realized the recovery party would now be cut off from the upper part of the trail, unless they could find a way around it.

  Even though she could guess the outcome, Mattie asked Robo to continue the search. He led her the fifty yards it took to reach the edge of the flood and then paused to sniff back and forth. Eventually he sat and looked up at her.

  She knelt beside him, hugging him close, as she praised him for the job he’d done and contemplated what he was telling her. The trail ended here. The fugitive or fugitives had passed this way before the river flooded the area.

  Mattie asked Robo to come with her as she went back uphill to a thick pine where they could shelter while she reconnoitered their position. Robo nudged her thigh, his signal that he wanted to play with his tennis ball, his reward at the end of a mission.

  She ruffled the hair at his neck while she knelt beside him. “Sorry, buddy. It’s too dangerous to play here. A treat will have to do.”

  While she retrieved several baked-liver treats from a pocket on her utility belt and fed them to him one by one, she watched the floodwaters surge and swell. She pulled her radio from her pocket and pressed the button to open a channel.

  To her relief, the sheriff responded.

  “Deputy Cobb,” he said. “What’s your status?”

  “I’m about halfway down from Hanging Falls. We’ve lost the scent in some floodwaters that have blocked the main trail. I estimate our fugitive passed here two to three hours ahead of us. Are you at the trailhead yet?”

  “We’re beyond there and on our way up.” Their connection had started to break up, and the sheriff’s voice faded in and out. Mattie strained to make out his words as the rain pelted the ground, raising a loud clatter. “I sent a cruiser here as soon as Deputy Brody called in, but there were no vehicles in the lot and there’ve been none since.”