Mountain of Evidence Page 13

  “That was a long time ago,” she said. “When I still worked at TDC. The people who shot at me and Jason are behind bars now. They weren’t trying to kill us, anyway. They were only trying to scare us off.”

  Cara talked as if this had happened years ago, instead of only last month. “I’m just a little worried about trespassing,” Eve said. “Especially if there are cameras.”

  “Don’t worry. There aren’t any cameras where we’re going. I checked when we were here for the protest.”

  They could see the gate now, a massive structure, with tall iron bars extending ten feet on either side of the road. Cara stopped the truck and shifted into Reverse. “The place where we need to park is just back there,” she said.

  “Wait a minute.” Eve craned her head forward to look. “That gate is open.”

  Cara looked. “Hmm,” she said, but continued to back up, turning sharply to take the truck into a gap in the brush, where it would be almost hidden from anyone who didn’t know it was there.

  They climbed out of the truck, and Cara put on the backpack that contained the sample containers and some other things they might need. She handed Eve a bottle of water and they started into the woods, keeping well away of the open gate and the camera they could clearly see mounted on a post beside it.

  After ten minutes of rough hiking, Cara stopped to get her bearings, then turned uphill. “It’s just a little way through here,” she said.

  The ground, though uneven, wasn’t too steep, and there was plenty of room to walk between clumps of sagebrush and scrub oak. The air smelled of sage and warmed earth, and if not for the tension that made her jump at every snapped twig or tumbled rock, Eve might have enjoyed herself.

  “It’s just up here,” Cara said, striking out toward a stretch of barbed wire fencing. She looked all around and, apparently satisfied there was no one to see them, stepped on the lower strand of wire and lifted up the top strand. “Go ahead through.”

  Eve hesitated. “Go on,” Cara urged. “We don’t want to stand around here too long.”

  Eve ducked under, then turned to hold the wire for Cara. Her friend led the way along the fence until they came to a cleared area. Cara stopped. “This can’t be right,” she said.

  “What’s wrong?” Eve asked, keeping her voice to just above a whisper.

  “This doesn’t even look like the same place,” Cara said.

  Before them lay a neat expanse of green interspersed with newly planted saplings, each tree carefully outlined with a little rock wall. Wood chip paths and two iron-and-wood benches added to the feel of a park. “When I was here before—even as recently as the day of the protest—this was all a jumble of rock and tree trunks and old timbers and mining equipment,” Cara said. “Not just a few rocks, but a mountain of them. Truckloads and truckloads full.”

  “Where did it go?” Cara asked.

  “They must have hauled it away.” She moved forward, down one of the paths. Far ahead they could make out a little stone building. “I remember that building,” Cara said. “But nothing else looks the same.”

  She shook her head. “This whole place is creeping me out. Let’s get our samples and leave.”

  They managed to scrape up enough dirt and gravel to fill two sample bottles, and added water from the creek to a third. Eve wasn’t optimistic they would find anything out of the ordinary, but she didn’t mention that to Cara, who seemed so upset. “They were supposed to be cleaning up the mine waste, right?” Eve asked.

  “Yes, but how could they have done all of this so quickly?” Cara said.

  “I’m not sure I understand why you’re so upset,” Eve said when they were safely back in the truck.

  “Dane sent me here because his findings didn’t match up with the results TDC was reporting to the government,” Cara said. “At least, I’m pretty sure that’s why he gave me those two flash drives with reports I think were from here. And when Jason and I came here—the day someone shot at us—the samples we collected then tested positive for a lot of nasty stuff that wasn’t supposed to be here.”

  “Then the protests and your agitating did what they were supposed to do,” Eve said. “They forced TDC to literally clean up their act and do what they were paid to do.”

  “Yes, but...” She shook her head. “It still doesn’t seem right.”

  “Maybe we’ll know more after the results of these tests come back,” Eve said.

  “If there really isn’t anything wrong with that site,” Cara asked, “why did Dane feel he had to leave?”

  Eve said nothing. Only Dane could answer that question, and for whatever reason, he wasn’t talking.

  * * *

  “THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S office has decided to formally charge Dane Trask with the murder of Marsha Grandberry.” Faith Martin reported this news to Grant when he arrived at the Ranger Brigade office Thursday morning after leaving Eve’s place.

  “On the basis of what evidence?” Grant asked. “We don’t have fingerprints or the murder weapon or any evidence tying Trask to Grandberry.” They had recovered very little evidence of any kind from the murder scene or the body. No hairs or fibers or DNA, and certainly no witnesses who had seen anyone in the area near the time when Grandberry was killed.

  “He was known to be in the vicinity of where her body was found. She was killed with a blade very similar to one he was known to carry. The method of her killing is described in the indictment as one with which he would be familiar.” Faith looked miserable as she relayed this news. “I don’t think it’s a particularly strong case, but public sentiment is very much against Trask, and the DA is under a lot of pressure to indict. Also, I understand TDC Enterprises was one of the chief donors to his campaign, and they’ve been pressuring for Trask’s indictment as well.”

  Grant had no words to express his disgust over this turn of affairs. “Get me the evidence file for the Grandberry murder,” he said.

  “Yes, sir.” Faith retreated from the office and Grant pulled up the Grandberry file on his computer. There was very little there—an inventory of everything found on the body, including Dane Trask’s business card, crime scene photographs, some measurements, the coroner’s report.

  Faith returned shortly, carrying a cardboard banker’s box. “This is everything,” she said, sliding the box onto the corner of his desk.

  Grant slipped on gloves and began laying out the evidence on the credenza to one side of his desk: Grandberry’s clothing, which had shown no sign of sexual assault. Her backpack and its contents: water bottle, map, the wrappings from the sandwich and the core of the apple she had eaten for lunch. The wallet, keys and phone from her pocket. He switched on the phone and keyed in the security code typed on the piece of paper attached to the phone that someone—Hud?—had obtained or figured out.

  The home screen showed the usual display of applications and files—messages, emails, photographs, etc. Idly, Grant began scrolling through the photographs. The last pictures she had taken before she died were of scenery—dramatic views into the Black Canyon, vignettes of wildflowers, some artistic shots of the sky.

  He stopped at a selfie she had taken in the parking area near the trailhead. A pretty young woman smiled up into the camera, the sign for the trail over her right shoulder. Grant started to move on, then stopped. Over her left shoulder, he could just make out a figure. Was that a person? Another tourist, perhaps? Using his thumb and forefinger, he enlarged the photo as much as possible, but only succeeded in making the background blur. Still, he thought there was something there.

  Phone in hand, he went in search of Officer Hudson.

  He found Hud at his computer, combing over a printout. He looked up at Grant’s approach. “Hello,” he said. “I’m just going over the inventory we made of items from that illegal dumpsite. I’m hoping something unusual pops out at me, but so far I’m not having any luck.”


  “Put that aside for a bit,” Grant said. “I need you to work on something else for me.” He handed Hud the cell phone. “Take a look at that photograph, will you?”

  Hud took the phone and studied the image. “This is the woman who was murdered on the trail, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “Yes. According to the time and date stamp on that photograph, she took it before she set out on her hike.”

  “All right,” Hud said. “What am I looking for, exactly?”

  “There over her left shoulder. Is that another person?”

  Hud squinted, then enlarged the image. “I think so,” he said.

  “Can you enlarge that image and sharpen it up enough to get a clearer picture of that other person?” Grant asked. “Maybe clear enough to get an ID?”

  “Maybe,” Hud said. “Do you think this might be a potential witness?”

  “It might be,” Grant said. “Then again, it might be a photograph of her killer.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The early morning cold cut through Grant’s leather jacket as if the garment was made of gauze, but he had forsaken the warmth of the inside of the bus station in order to be that much closer to his daughter’s arrival. He shared this chilly space with a man and a woman who both stood at the other end of the building, smoking, and a short woman with a large paunch who had introduced herself as a representative of the bus company, apparently there to make sure he was reunited with his daughter and maybe to persuade him not to sue the company.

  More people filed onto the platform as the bus’s 5:00 a.m. arrival neared. Grant shifted from foot to foot, not so much to warm his numb feet, but to burn off some of the nervous energy that raced through him. He was exhausted from yet another sleepless night, jittery from too much caffeine and sick to his stomach with worry that something would go wrong and Janie wouldn’t be on the bus. Angela had called him at midnight, interrupting the little sleep he had managed to snatch, to alternately sob and berate him for the entire situation. “She gets her stubbornness from you,” she said. “She never would have done this if you hadn’t encouraged her to be so independent.”

  Grant had resisted the urge to hang up on her, letting her rant and not saying anything in his defense. He had learned the hard way that responding only riled her more. Better to let her cry it all out, and promise to call her as soon as Janie was safely with him.

  The squeal of brakes signaled the big motor coach’s arrival. People around him began gathering duffels and tote bags and suitcases. Grant started forward but the bus company rep—Alicia or Felicia or something like that—put a hand on his arm. “Your daughter will get off last, with the driver,” she said. “It’s already been arranged.”

  A second employee came out to corral the departing passengers behind a length of yellow tape. With a burst of diesel exhaust and the hiss of brakes, the bus lumbered to a halt. After a few seconds’ delay, the doors opened.

  The passengers who emerged looked tired and pale, shoulders slumped, feet dragging. They climbed down alone or in twos or threes, men and women, a few children. When at last the bus seemed empty, Grant waited, gaze fixed on the open door. “Where is she?” he asked.

  “She’s coming,” Alicia said.

  And then she was there, looking very small and young and a little afraid, her strawberry-blond hair streaming down from beneath a bright pink knit cap. An older man in a bus driver’s uniform stood on the step behind her. He said something to her and pointed, and she turned her head and met Grant’s gaze.

  Her face lit up in a smile that made his heart leap in his chest. And then she was in his arms, hitting him with the force of a wrecking ball, his arms squeezing her tight. “I didn’t mean to worry you, Daddy,” she said. “I just wanted to come see you, and everything was fine, really.”

  “We’ll talk about it later,” Grant said. He tilted her head up and looked into her eyes. “Right now I’m just happy to see you.”

  “I’m happy to see you, too,” she said. “The bus driver told me someone was meeting me here and I was hoping it was you and not the cops.” She giggled. “Of course, I guess you are the cops. But I really wanted it to be a surprise.”

  The bus driver joined them and Janie turned to him. “This is Eddie,” she said. “He drove all the way from Dallas and looked out for me.”

  Grant shook the man’s hand. “Thank you.”

  “You’ve got a good girl, there,” Eddie said. “Never gave me a bit of trouble. Not like some, I can tell you.”

  Grant thanked the bus company rep and collected Janie’s bag. Then father and daughter headed for his cruiser. In the vehicle, Grant handed Janie his phone. “You need to call your mother. She’s beside herself with worry.”

  He waited, not moving, while she telephoned her mother, who greeted her with a wail, then shouting, and finally, tears. “I’m sorry, Mom,” Janie said, over and over, tears running down her face. Finally, Grant could stand no more. He took the phone from Janie and said, “It’s okay, Angela. She’s fine. We’re all tired. I’m going to take her home now.”

  “Her home is here,” Angela said, but without much venom.

  “She’ll call you later,” Grant said. “After we’ve all had some rest.” He started the car and headed out, then glanced at his daughter again. “You want to tell me what happened to your phone?”

  She squirmed. “I sort of lost it.”

  “You lost it?”

  “Mom took it away.”

  “Because you broke curfew. Why did you do that?”

  “It wasn’t on purpose!” Her voice rose. “I just sort of, lost track of time. Anyway, it was no big deal.”

  He struggled to find the right words to say. He hated not being involved in the day-to-day of raising his children—the discipline and tough stuff as well as the good times. But since the girls didn’t live with him full time, he had to turn over all of that to Angela. “Your leaving to come here was a big deal,” he said.

  “I don’t know why everyone is so upset,” Janie said as they cruised through the dark streets of the still-sleeping town.

  “Don’t you?” Grant asked. “You aren’t smart enough to figure it out?”

  He couldn’t see her very clearly in the darkness, but he could hear her shifting around. “I wanted to see you, and if I had told you ahead of time, you and Mom wouldn’t have let me come,” she said. “And it worked out all right. No one gave me any trouble. I always paid attention to where I was, and the people around me, and I always tried to sit right behind the driver, so that if anybody bothered me, the driver could intervene. And I left a note, so everyone would know I didn’t run away or do anything stupid.”

  “Setting off by yourself across the country wasn’t very smart, sweetheart,” Grant said.

  She didn’t say anything, but turned her head to look out the window.

  “How did you get to Philadelphia?” he asked.

  “I took the train. I was going to take the bus all the way, but when I put my starting point and my destination in a trip planner online, it suggested the train to Philly, so that’s what I did. It was fun. I’d never been on a train before, or a bus either, except a city bus or a school bus. Traveling across the country is really different.”

  He stopped at a red light, and studied his daughter in the illumination from a nearby streetlamp. She looked older than she had when he had last seen her, less than two months before, and she had navigated a two-thousand-mile journey with the aplomb of a seasoned traveler. She was growing up, yet she was still a child, her fearlessness a testament to how untouched she still was by the ugliness of the world. He longed to protect her from that ugliness for as long as he could.

  She turned and met his gaze and smiled, and he had to look away, so she wouldn’t see the sudden tears that stung his eyes. “Where did you get the money for the tickets?” he asked after a while, when they were on
the highway, away from town.

  “I took it out of my savings account. I know that money is supposed to be for college, but there’s a lot in there. I missed you and I really wanted to see you.”

  Any residual anger melted at those words. “I’m glad you’re here now,” he said.

  She shifted to look out at the passing scenery, bathed in the golden glow of sunrise. “It’s so different here,” she said. “Very barren and kind of stark. But I like it. Do you like it?”

  “I do,” he said. “Though it took some getting used to.”

  “Where do you live?” she asked.

  “Not far from where I work, in a little cabin.” The cedar-sided A-frame was small, with only two bedrooms and a single bath, but large windows afforded good views of the park and surrounding high plains.

  “Do you like your job? Is it very different from what you did in DC.?”

  “It’s different,” he said. “But also a lot the same. I’m still commanding a group of men and women who solve crimes, but here we oversee a bunch of territory and cross a lot of jurisdictions.” There was more paperwork and more politics, but also more freedom to do things as he saw fit. The mixture appealed to him.

  “So, Dad, do you have a girlfriend?”

  The question jolted him. He thought of Eve. He felt closer to her than he had any woman in years, but what were they to each other, really? “You and your sister are the only girls in my life,” he said.

  Janie rolled her eyes. “Do you have a woman friend? Are you dating anyone?”

  “Not exactly.” He still wasn’t sure where he stood with Eve.

  She angled toward him. “Well why not?”

  “Why are you so interested?”

  “I don’t think you should be alone. After all, Beth and I are growing up and we’re going to go off to college and probably get married ourselves one day. And Mom remarried. Why shouldn’t you?”