Mountain of Evidence Read online

  Back at Ranger Brigade headquarters, Lieutenant Dance began organizing a team to collect evidence from the illegal dump site. “If we’re lucky, whoever did this left something behind that will help us identify them. At the very least, we should be able to determine if this is an active site that they’re still adding to. If that’s the case, we can set up a stakeout to catch them.”

  Grant returned to his office to tackle some of the paperwork that was the inevitable burden of command. He had just opened a new file on his computer when his phone buzzed. “Commander Sanderlin.”

  “Pete McCabe, with the National Park,” a deep voice said. “We’ve got a situation over here we need to pull you in on.”

  Grant sat up straighter. “What’s the situation?”

  “We’ve got a DB found on one of the trails. A woman, late twenties. Her throat’s been cut.”

  “I’ll send someone right over.”

  “Just so you know, I think this might relate to something you’re already working on.”

  “How’s that?”

  “We found a business card clutched in the woman’s hand. A card for Dane Trask.”

  Chapter Nine

  Grant looked down on the body of the young woman at the side of the trail. Arms flung back, lifeless eyes staring vacantly to the sky, it was hard to picture the beautiful, vibrant person she might have been. “The cut was made with a large-bladed knife, like a hunting knife.” The medical examiner, a middle-aged woman with short blond hair, spoke matter-of-factly as she stripped off blue nitrile gloves. “No signs of trouble that I can see. Not even any scuff marks in the dirt. I think he surprised her from behind. She was probably dead before she had time to register what was happening.”

  Grant pictured it: the woman hiking along, admiring the scenery around her, the man seizing her, perhaps lifting her off her feet, slicing open her throat, then laying her out here beside the trail, as if on display. She lay in the shade, on a bed of pinion needles, their forest-fresh smell wafting up to mingle with the stench of death.

  He turned to the park ranger beside him. McCabe was in his late fifties, his tanned face creased with fine lines, his hazel eyes almost lost in the many folds. “You said there was a business card?”

  “Here.” McCabe passed over a clear evidence bag. The card inside was white, with a red-and-black logo for Welcome Home Warriors and the name Dane Trask, with a phone number, in black lettering underneath.

  “Looks like Trask left this deliberately,” McCabe said. “I don’t know if he’s taunting us or what.”

  Grant slipped the evidence bag with the card into his jacket and looked at the woman again. “Who is she?”

  “Marsha Grandberry, aged twenty-two, a student at Western State, according to the ID in the wallet she had with her.”

  “Did she know Dane Trask?” Grant asked.

  McCabe shrugged. “That’s for you to find out.”

  Jason Beck, who had been talking to a small group of civilians gathered behind the barriers the park service had set up at the trailhead two miles back, came loping down the trail. “What have you got?” Grant asked.

  “Her boyfriend and her best friend—her roommate, actually—are back there waiting,” he said. “They came as soon as they got the word from one of the rangers. They both say Marsha didn’t know Trask. She didn’t have any connection to Welcome Home Warriors or to TDC Enterprises. She was studying botany and came here today to get some photos she needed for a presentation she was working on for a class.” He had been avoiding looking at the body, but glanced that way now as two technicians lifted the shrouded figure onto a gurney. “Why would Trask kill her like that?”

  “We don’t know that the murderer was Trask,” Grant said.

  Beck nodded. “He must have handed out a lot of business cards. So you think someone is trying to make him look guilty?”

  “This is an area of the park where we’ve had the most sightings of Trask,” McCabe said. “And the knife sounds like something a former army ranger would have.”

  “Anyone who’s been following this case knows those things,” Grant said. “But we also know that Trask is smart. He hasn’t done anything I’ve seen so far without a reason.”

  “Like I told you, he left the card to taunt us,” McCabe said. “He thinks he’s smarter than law enforcement.”

  “He didn’t have a reason to kill Marsha Grandberry,” Beck said. “No one I’ve interviewed about him has mentioned anything about violence.”

  Toby Masterson had warned Eve that Trask was violent, but his accusations hadn’t rung true to Grant. Still, he couldn’t discard them. “We’ll check the card for fingerprints and the body and the surroundings for any DNA or other evidence,” he said. “We’re not ruling out any suspect at this point.”

  He left Beck to oversee the forensics team and headed back down the trail to his waiting cruiser. Sun beat down on the back of his neck, and his boots crunched in the red gravel of the trail. If Trask had murdered this woman, a stranger to him, then he was indeed as dangerous as Masterson had warned. Was he a danger to Eve as well?

  Grant needed to call and break this news to her before she read about it in the paper, and reiterate his warning for her to be careful.

  Head down, preoccupied with these thoughts, he was startled to hear a woman’s voice call his name.

  “Grant!”

  He jerked his head up as Eve jogged toward him. Her face was drawn with worry. “A colleague at the paper called to tell me he’d just heard the rangers found a woman murdered in the park.” She gripped his arm, fingers digging into his muscle through the thick fabric of his jacket. “He said they think Dane killed her. That has to be wrong. He wouldn’t do something like that.”

  Aware of people looking in their direction, some of them probably from the media, Grant put one hand at her back and steered her around to the passenger side of his cruiser. “Let’s go to headquarters where we can talk privately,” he said. “I’ll bring you back to your car later.” She didn’t look in a fit state to drive right now. She slid into the passenger seat and buckled the safety belt, lips pressed tightly together, as if she was struggling to hold back a flood of words. That was one of the things he appreciated about Eve: she knew how to be patient, how to wait for the right time to speak, and she hadn’t shown a tendency to jump to conclusions.

  Indeed, she waited until they were in his office with the door closed before she spoke. “Dane wouldn’t kill someone,” she said. “Not unless it was in self-defense. Was this self-defense?”

  Grant sat, not in the chair behind his desk, but in a side chair. He motioned for her to take the chair beside him. “This wasn’t in self-defense,” he said. “And don’t ask for more details, because I can’t tell you.”

  She visibly shuddered. “I don’t want details. But do you really think Dane killed her? Why?”

  He spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. It was always a balance, giving those close to a case the information they wanted, and protecting evidence in a criminal case. “There was something left at the scene that might have belonged to Dane,” he said. “It’s one piece of what will eventually be a whole body of evidence. It doesn’t mean Dane is guilty.”

  “But it doesn’t mean he’s innocent, either,” she said. “And you don’t have to speak so circumspectly. My reporter friend told me one of Dane’s business cards was left on the body.”

  “How did he know that? Who is this reporter?” Anger tinged Grant’s words.

  “I’ll give you his name, but don’t be angry with him. He said an anonymous caller phoned the paper. He called the park and they confirmed they had found a dead woman, but wouldn’t say more.”

  “What’s his name?” Grant grabbed a pen and a pad of paper from the corner of his desk.

  She gave him the name and phone number of her friend. “Do you think you can trace the ca
ll?” she asked.

  “Probably not,” he admitted. They would try, but a brief call, probably made from a cell phone, was unlikely to yield much information. “But we’ll want to know exactly what was said, what the call sounded like, and things like that.” So much of investigating a crime was collecting as much information as possible, never knowing which piece might be the one to complete the puzzle.

  “Dane wouldn’t kill someone,” she said again. “And he certainly wouldn’t call a reporter and brag about it. I was always after him to do more to promote Welcome Home Warriors in the media. The only time he ever sent out a press release about the group was when I wrote it for him. He really isn’t someone who seeks the limelight.”

  “If I had asked you before all this happened, you would have said he wouldn’t purposely wreck his truck, abandon his home and daughter to live in the wilderness, raiding campsites for food and sending cryptic messages about his former employer,” Grant said.

  “He isn’t raiding campsites,” she said. “Cara told me he always leaves something of value, which I think shows what an honest and honorable man he is.”

  Hearing her defend her former lover abraded Grant’s nerves like sandpaper. “You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “You have to admit what Dane Trask has done is not normal behavior.”

  She bowed her head, hands clasped tightly in her lap. “No,” she said softly. “It isn’t. But that doesn’t make him a murderer.”

  “We’re going to do everything we can to find the person who did this,” Grant said. “The right person.”

  She nodded, and sniffed. His chest tightened. Was she going to cry? Because of something he’d said?

  But when she lifted her head, her eyes were dry. “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked.

  He hesitated, then slipped the evidence bag from his pocket and showed it to her. “Do you recognize this?” he asked.

  She stared at the card, swallowed hard, then nodded. “Dane carried those with him everywhere.” Her eyes met his. “He must have handed out hundreds of them. He gave them to every veteran he met, to families and friends of veterans, to potential employers, to donors. He even pinned them on bulletin boards and left them with tips at restaurants. He tried hard to directly reach people he could help, even though he resisted dealing with the media.” She looked at the card again. “Anyone could have put that card there to throw suspicion on Dane. But if he did kill that woman, he wouldn’t leave his card. That’s just stupid.”

  “Maybe he wanted us to know. Maybe he was taunting us, letting us know we’d never catch him.”

  “He wasn’t like that.” She sounded exhausted, her shoulders slumped. “I know you haven’t seen evidence of that, but Dane was a really good man.”

  “If he was so good, why did you break up with him?”

  He hadn’t meant to speak the words out loud. Eve stared at him. “I told you why Dane and I split up. But maybe you don’t believe me. Maybe you don’t want to believe me.” She stood.

  He reached out, as if to stop her, but the look in her eyes froze him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  She turned away. “I’d better go now.”

  He stood also. “I’ll take you back to your car.”

  “I’ll ask one of your officers to do it. I’m sure you have more important work to do.”

  “I’ll call you tonight,” he said.

  “Don’t.” She shook her head. “It would really be better if you didn’t.”

  She walked out of the office, shutting the door firmly behind her. He stared after her, fury warring with shame. The one woman he’d met in forever he felt a true connection with, and he’d let stupid jealousy—over a man she was no longer with—ruin things. Was he forty-five or fourteen? He ran his fingers through his hair and dropped into the chair behind his desk. When he found Dane Trask, he was going to punch him. Or maybe Trask should punch him. It was a toss-up which would feel more deserved.

  * * *

  TWO DAYS LATER, Eve stared at the headline on the front page of the local newspaper. HUNT FOR TRASK INTENSIFIES AS WOMAN FOUND MURDERED IN NATIONAL PARK. The story below the headline named Dane as the chief suspect in the death of Marsha Grandberry, a local college student. Eve felt sick as she read the details of the crime, and had to sit down.

  For once she was alone in the shop, Sarah having taken the morning off for a dentist appointment. Of course her friend would ask questions about this latest development, but at least Eve would have time to absorb this new information and come up with some kind of response. But what could she possibly say? She and Dane were no longer close. She had no idea what was going through his mind these days. Was it possible he had snapped and was indeed responsible for a woman’s death?

  The bell connected to the front door sounded and she looked up, smile pasted on her face, prepared to greet a customer and pretend nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The smile dropped when she recognized Cara Mead. “You’ve seen the paper,” Cara said, nodding at the sheets open on the counter in front of Eve.

  “Yes, and I can’t believe it,” Eve said.

  “You can’t believe it because it isn’t true,” Cara said. “Dane wouldn’t kill anyone, much less a woman he didn’t know who wasn’t hurting anyone.” She slid onto the high stool at the front counter and dropped her purse to the floor beside her. “And all that nonsense about one of Dane’s business cards being left behind. As if he’s a complete idiot, or a homicidal maniac.”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Eve said.

  “I think someone is trying to frame him,” Cara said. “Someone else killed that woman, in an area where Dane had been spotted, and left his business card—which anyone might have because we both know Dane handed out hundreds of the things—so that the police would think Dane was the killer.”

  “But why do that?” Eve asked.

  “So the police would look harder for him? So that if they caught him they would be less likely to listen to anything he had to say.” She leaned across the counter and spoke with a new urgency. “That’s why we have to go back up to the Mary Lee Mine and get those samples. All the clues Dane has sent us point to something not right—maybe even downright criminal—going on up there. He’s counting on us to prove him right.”

  “So he’s letting us do his dirty work?” The bitterness in her voice startled Eve. She had thought she was over being angry or annoyed with Dane and his tendency to be so focused on what he wanted, and what he thought was right, even if others didn’t agree. He wanted to go to Mexico on vacation and listed ten reasons why her desire to go to Hawaii instead was a bad idea. He didn’t like seafood so they never went to seafood restaurants, even if there were other things on the menu he could have ordered. He had decided he didn’t want children and her opinion didn’t matter.

  “He must have a good reason,” Cara said. “Dane was never a coward.”

  True. Though he had his faults, Dane never backed down from a challenge. If he was wrong, he admitted it and apologized. And he had fought for his country, in some very dangerous places.

  But that didn’t mean she had to put herself in danger. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think more samples are going to prove anything,” she said. “We’d better leave this to the Ranger Brigade and local police.”

  Cara looked disappointed, but not particularly surprised. “Let me know if you change your mind,” she said. “I can’t just sit around and do nothing. I have to try to help.”

  “Good luck,” Eve said. “But maybe, since Dane got himself into this mess—whatever it is—he’s the only one who can get himself out.”

  Chapter Ten

  Grant surveyed the mounds of rubble scattered over half an acre of what had been, until recently, pristine wilderness. Broken concrete, old timbers, tons of rock ranging from fist-sized chunks to man-sized boulders, were scatt
ered amid the stunted pinions and red rock formations. Deep ruts cut through the sagebrush showed the path of the trucks that had dumped the debris here. The sun beat down on it all, spring fast turning to summer here in the high desert.

  “This has all been left here in the last month, I’m sure,” Lieutenant Dance said. He nudged an irregular chunk of gray rock with one foot. “I did a patrol down the only road back in here about a month ago and I’m sure I would have noticed those tracks leading from it back here.”

  Jason Beck picked up a chunk of yellow-gray rock and examined it. “This looks like the same stuff that was at the Mary Lee Mine,” he said.

  “Wasn’t some of that material radioactive?” Dance asked.

  Beck tossed the rock aside. “It was. We ought to have this stuff tested.”

  “I don’t know.” Dance looked around. “Wasn’t the stuff at the mine just rock? This has wood and metal, and I think there’s even some Sheetrock over there.” He pointed toward the farthest mound. “This looks more like construction debris than anything from a mine.”

  “So who would dump construction debris all the way out here?” Grant asked. “It’s a long way from town to haul all of this.”

  “Bids for projects usually include the cost of disposal,” Dance said. “Landfills charge by the yard and for a big project that can really add up. Dump the stuff out here and you pocket the extra.” He scowled. “And the chances of anyone catching you in the act are slim to none.”

  “Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens on public land all the time,” Beck said. “Mostly it’s just a bag of household trash or a broken appliance. People don’t want to deal with it, so they dump it somewhere out of the way and make it someone else’s problem.”