Scent of Truth
Author
Valerie Hansen
Reads
16.8K
Chapters
26
ONE
Shadows lengthened, shrouding the well-traveled paths through the old-growth forest and accentuating the lingering chill of a late spring. Mount Rainier National Park Ranger Brooke Stevens took a breath of the icy air, shivered and turned up the collar of her forest-green jacket.
Portions of the branching trails she was inspecting glistened with moonlit ice. Nature hikes and interactions with park visitors kept her busy during the day, but at night—at night details of the recent double murder came flooding back. Truth to tell, no one was safe in spite of the recurring presence of officers from a K-9 unit that covered three Washington State national parks, hers included.
Stamping snow off her boots, Brooke bent to pick up a discarded candy wrapper and an empty chip bag. The paper crinkled as she stuffed it into her plastic trash bag. A twig snapped somewhere close by. Brooke froze. The added weight of ice on fragile limbs could make them crack like that, of course, but the sun had melted most of the treetop accumulations.
Tendrils of fear crept up her neck like the uncurling fiddleheads of nearby ferns. Fellow rangers who knew she was out here wouldn’t be concerned unless she used her radio to call for backup. If she gave in to jumpy nerves and admitted being afraid when there was nobody actually stalking her, she’d never live it down.
Listening, she held her breath. Her pulse thudded. The nearby woods were so silent it was creepy. Nothing moved. No birds called, no squirrels scampered—not even the hoot of an owl or screechy yip of a fox broke the heavy silence. There was only her, a lone, unarmed ranger.
If she turned back now she’d be shirking her duty to keep the trails clean. Still, what might she face if she went ahead and completed her rounds? Which was better, carrying on in spite of an eerie feeling or looking like a fool by reporting danger when she had no proof?
She started to reach for the radio clipped to her belt. Something crashed into her from behind. One gloved hand held her arm while another tightened at her throat. She tried to twist away and loudly screamed, “No-o-o-o!”
A faint reply echoed, then another.
“Help!” she screamed.
Brooke’s dark-clad assailant shoved her aside and bolted, then slipped on the slick trail and clambered off on all fours like a clumsy bear cub.
Dizzy, she braced to defend herself. Instead of the ski-masked man who had tried to grab her, however, a pair of concerned-looking hikers jogged into view, coming from the direction of Longmire bridge.
“Are you all right?” The first young man dropped his day pack and approached.
“I am now,” Brooke said. “It’s not safe out here after dark. Come on. I’ll escort you guys down.”
“Did you hear a scream?” the second hiker asked.
“That was me.” Brooke paused to catch her breath a bit more.
“What happened?”
“I’ll fill you in as we walk. Let’s get out of here, all of us, before we freeze.”
After leading her small party back to the partially open campground near the ranger station while answering their questions as best she could, Brooke saw them safely settled, then reported the incident to her superior, the head ranger, Georgia Henning, via radio.
“All right,” the older woman said, sounding less than pleased to be disturbed after office hours. “Go back to your cabin and warm up. I’ll send someone over to take your statement while it’s fresh in your mind.”
“I doubt I’ll forget,” Brooke replied, trying to quell any hint of sarcasm.
Henning’s comeback was devoid of the humor that might have made it easier to take. “Some people adapt to the wilderness well and some don’t, Stevens. You can’t lead groups of hikers on effective nature walks if you’re jumping at shadows.”
“Yeah, well, this shadow grabbed me. I didn’t imagine it.” Brooke had continued to walk swiftly as they talked and was almost home.
“If you insist. You have witnesses?”
“There were a couple of hikers out there who heard me scream and rushed over, but the guy who grabbed me fled the scene before they arrived. I’m the only one who saw what he did.” Closer to her cabin, she noted clusters of footprints in the snow and mud, particularly at the base of a window. “Whoa. Hold on.”
“What? Stevens, report.”
“I was blaming my feelings of being watched on the memory of that couple who were murdered in the park last month. It looks like my jitters were for a good reason. Somebody left tracks all around my cabin.”
“Explain.”
“You almost have to see this for yourself. There are so many prints here it looks like somebody held a family reunion.”
“Any chance we can follow them?”
Brooke swept her light over the uneven ground and shined it into the thicket at the base of some smaller red cedar and western hemlock trees. “Maybe. I can see boot prints leading away.”
“All right. The cabin is secure?”
“Looks like it. If I go up on the porch I may destroy evidence.”
“Okay. I already have rangers responding. I’ll be out as soon as I’ve contacted our park K-9 unit and ordered a tracking dog. In the meantime, stay out in the open, where you can see and be seen. Help will be there in moments.”
“Affirmative.” Brooke was glad her boss was so organized even if that trait did drive the Mt. Rainier ranger staff up the wall. At this point, her only regret was leaving the site of her attack on the trail instead of calling it in from there and waiting for official assistance.
She drew a shaky breath. A young couple, Stacey Stark and Jonas Digby, had been shot a mere forty or fifty yards from where she had been jumped tonight, and their killer was still at large. At this point in the ongoing investigation, every clue must be carefully examined and she had blown it when she’d left the scene of her assault.
Sounds of approaching vehicles echoed in the distance. Brooke had to admit she didn’t care who was coming, even if the responders included her by-the-book boss, because there would soon be one of the magnificent working dogs, too. Picturing the impressive German shepherd she’d seen at the Stark Lodge and hoping he was the K-9 they sent, she folded her arms across her chest for warmth and shivered. This promised to be a long, long night.
K-9 Officer Colt Maxwell and his bloodhound, Sampson, had been temporarily placed at the Stark Lodge near Mount Rainier National Park as part of the investigation into a double murder the previous month. Usually he was paired up with his colleague Danica Hayes and her protection dog, Hutch, but since they were out on a different assignment that evening, Colt was assigned to respond to the call inside the park with fellow officer Willow Bates and her K-9, Star, a German shorthair pointer.
“I’ll go talk to the ranger,” Colt told Willow as he pulled his PNK9 SUV to a stop behind one of the official park vehicles. “No sense both of us and our dogs getting chilled if they don’t need Star’s skills.”
“Call if we can help,” Willow said.
He nodded, and then circled behind the SUV. He released Sampson from the specially constructed safety area in the rear and snapped on a tracking lead. All floppy ears and drool, the bloodhound jumped down with a plop and looked up at Colt, clearly eager to work. There was always an underlying sense of excitement whenever he and his K-9 were called to the scene of a crime even though Sampson was rarely asked to track a live human being. Most of his work involved finding the deceased, and he was very good at locating bodies.
Several rangers stood guard at access points to a small cabin. Headlights and spotlights from park vehicles shone on the yard, casting shadows in the unevenly packed snow. Colt kept Sampson at heel as he sought out the person in charge to report for duty.
The head ranger, Georgia Henning, was facing a younger female ranger when Colt approached. Nobody had to be close by to hear their conversation because it was rather heated, particularly on Henning’s part.
Toe-to-toe with her staff member, she pointed. “Are you sure these footprints weren’t here when you left?”
Although the younger woman spoke softly, her voice was firm. “Positive. This mess would be hard to overlook.”
“Hmm. I suppose they could have been caused by wandering park visitors. Some of them are quite nosy.”
As Henning went on speaking, she raised her voice and directed her attention to Colt and the rangers. “All right. I want a cordon around this whole scene, particularly where you can see disturbances. When in doubt, take in a wider area. Then everybody stand back and hold your positions. Now that the K-9 is here we’ll let him lead off.”
Colt could feel the energy from his partner traveling up the leash and see how eager he was to get going. He stepped forward. The younger ranger was trembling so he paused to ask for background. “Is this your cabin?”
“Yes.”
The name tag on her uniform said Stevens, which was enough to trigger a memory of having met her before, not that he hadn’t recognized her by sight the moment he’d arrived. Even all bundled up against the cold he could see locks of her auburn hair peeking out. Both that and her freckles were a dead giveaway.
He offered his hand. “Colt Maxwell. And this is Sampson.”
“I’m Brooke. Brooke Stevens. I think we’ve met before.”
“We have. I was here for the Stark-Digby homicides.”
Henning raised an eyebrow at the bloodhound as if just now recognizing him. “Hold on. I told your chief we needed a tracking dog.”
“Affirmative. Sampson can do that, too, as long as he has a scent to follow.”
“If you say so.”
He smiled slightly, aware of how most people doubted the extraordinary feats their unit’s K-9s were capable of until they’d seen success after success. “Was the cabin broken into?”
Brooke answered. “I don’t think so. It’s this trampling all over the yard that worried me after...”
“After?” Seeing her look to her superior for affirmation, he wondered what they were not saying.
“There was an incident on one of the trails tonight,” Brooke finally told him. “Someone grabbed me. I should have stayed there and radioed for backup, I know, but two hikers had come along and the guy ran off. All I could think about was getting home.” Gesturing with her whole arm, she added, “And now this.”
Sampson was sniffing the air, impatient, but Colt wasn’t quite ready to put him to work. “Do you think the two events could be connected? That the guy who grabbed you was lurking around your cabin and then followed you?”
“I don’t know,” the pretty ranger said with a shrug, pressing the edges of her jacket collar closer to her ears.
“All right. We’ll start next to the cabin. Have you been up on the porch recently?”
“I got close. I never thought...”
“It’s okay. Sampson can sort out scents the way some people make a beeline for the cinnamon roll store in a mall.” To his relief, that comment caused Brooke to give him a fleeting smile, even if her boss did look a bit put out. Well, too bad. Mild humor was his go-to response to put people at ease in almost any situation. It had worked well in the past and he was thankful that his personality allowed some levity despite warranted seriousness. Everyone benefitted from it.
Georgia Henning spoke up. “I’ve kept my people away from tracks leading into the forest. If you start there you may find a cleaner trail.”
“Good. Show me.”
She pointed. “There. And over there.”
“Those aren’t normal access points?”
Brooke was shaking her head. “No. I always come in from the campground by way of the road, even when I’m walking. It’s easier, and that way I don’t damage the meadows.”
“Okay.” Colt gave her another smile, hoping to reassure her, then commanded Sampson to heel and started off, intending to skirt the perimeter.
He was halfway to the set of tracks he could see as uneven depressions in a drift of snow beneath one of the Douglas fir trees when his K-9 began trying to pull him to the side.
Colt paused to study the dog. He knew his partner as well as he knew himself and there was clearly something on Sampson’s mind besides footprints. Nevertheless, he kept the dog close to maintain full control until he was ready to listen.
Sampson glanced up at him with those big, brown, limpid eyes and whined. If he could have talked, Colt figured he’d be calling his handler names.
“All right, boy. You’re the boss.”
“No!” Henning called after him, “Not that way.”
Fixated on his K-9, Colt ignored her. Sampson was basically making straight for the woodpile behind the cabin. Park residents heated primarily by burning wood rather than having propane delivered or pay for electricity, particularly in the simple dwellings assigned to staff. Consequently, there were stacks of cut and split firewood all over the compound and more for sale to campers at the in-park concessions. Otherwise, visitors would decimate the natural vegetation looking for something to burn.
Nose to the ground, Sampson rounded the end of the stacked wood, sniffed a particularly large mound of snow, sat down and whined.
Colt rewarded him with his favorite little stuffed toy, a worn pink bunny. Then he motioned to the closest ranger and called out, “You’d better get your boss over here and tell her to notify CSI.”
The younger man stood gaping at the mound. Colt looked back at the resident of the cabin and locked eyes with Brooke Stevens. Her lips were parted, too, as if she knew exactly what the K-9 had found. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the possibility that such a naturally lovely woman could be a criminal, but this development wasn’t looking good for her.
Sampson was never wrong. Colt had no doubt the snow was covering a body. The very dead kind.
