Deadfall (21 page)

“You too. Sam, this is my partner, Kevin Bledsoe.”

The men shook hands and exchanged pleasantries, finally getting down to business. “So you guys got our boy, huh?” Sam asked.

“Afraid so.” Mac said. “Too bad it wasn't just a cut-and-dry floater. That bullet really threw us a curve.”

“Us too. I've got the files in the car.” Sam ducked into the backseat to retrieve the paperwork. “I gotta tell you, the sheriff isn't too happy giving up the investigation. We could handle it, you know.”

Politics wasn't Mac's strong point, and he looked to Kevin for guidance. When Kevin wasn't forthcoming, Mac went ahead. “We realize that, Sam, but the fact is, we don't know when or where our victim was killed. We know he lived in Clackamas County, was last seen in your county, and was found in Multnomah County in a river that divides two states. It only makes sense that OSP works the case. Believe me, if I had half a chance, I'd dump this murder investigation. You know how time-consuming they can be—the pressure from the family and the hundreds of hours of reports and court time involved if we make an arrest.”

Sam paused for a moment. “To be honest, Mac, I haven't actually run with a homicide investigation before, and I have no problem with OSP taking it on. The sheriff is dragging his feet.

You know how elected officials like to keep their names in the papers.”

“I'm glad you agree.”

“Most of our contacts live on the west side anyway.” Sam handed Mac a two-inch stack of files. “These are all the reports to date. We didn't have much to go on without a body.”

“Was this the area you based the search on the first day?” Kevin asked.

Since he'd only been up there the one day, Mac let Sam answer. “Yep. Most of those reports are search-and-rescue logs for our department and the search efforts of private citizens and outside agencies. We had a couple birds up, hounds, searchers on foot and horseback, the works. We didn't turn up anything on this guy.”

“Did you interview many people outside of the family?” For not being the lead, Kevin sure had a lot of questions. Mac was content to listen and learn.

“Yeah, it's all in the reports. Besides Brad's mom, dad, and sister, we only talked to a couple friends, and of course, to his girlfriend, Jessica. She was the last one to see him alive that we know of.” Sam clicked his tongue. “Bet you got an earful from Brad's mother; there's no love lost there.”

“Actually no, we just delivered the bad news last night. Didn't figure they were up for an interview.” But Mac did remember Jessica and the antagonistic attitude the family had toward her.

“Jessica was Brad's live-in girlfriend,” Sam went on. “She and Brad had come up here to talk. Jessica says she broke up with him. He took off in a huff and headed up the trail. That's the last she saw of him—or so she says. Her take is that he fell or jumped off the cliff.”

“Or was pushed,” Mac added.

“Well, we gave that a lot of thought. Thing is, suicide isn't that far off. We get jumpers from the valley here all the time. The place is actually included on some Web site that lists ways to commit suicide.”

“No kidding?” Mac shook his head.

“You can find just about anything on the Web these days. The Web address is in the reports. I checked it out one or two jumpers back.”

Kevin looked up at the waterfall and then down at the pool at its base.

“Anyhow, Jessica reports her boyfriend missing after driving all the way home to the Mount Hood area. That and the fact that Jessica didn't help with the search got Mrs. Gaynes into a tizzy. To make a long story longer, Jessica ended up leaving town less than two weeks into the search.”

Kevin frowned. “Where did she go?”

“California. Crescent City. She has family there. Brad's parents said that Jessica cleaned out the house on her way out of town.

Took everything of value, including clothing and possessions that belonged to Brad. They took it as a sign she knew Brad wouldn't be coming back.”

“What kind of read did you get from her?” Mac asked. He remembered his encounter with Jessica. She'd been cool and apathetic.

“Hard to say,” Sam said. “She was pretty standoffish. Good-looking gal. She was the kind of kid you wanted to believe. I'll tell you this much: she stuck to her guns, no real discrepancies in her story. One thing she did say, though, was that Brad got into an altercation with a truckdriver.”

That piqued Mac's interest. “How so?”

“Jessica said Brad was getting verbal, and the truckdriver thought he would rescue a damsel in distress. Brad told him to butt out. They argued, and the driver finally went back to his rig after threatening to get even.”

“You followed up on it?” Kevin asked.

“We tried. We were never able to track this guy down, so he's still a loose end.”

“Has anyone interviewed Jessica since she moved?” Mac tucked the reports under his arms and blew on his hands, wishing he'd put on long johns and gloves. The frigid air whipped right through his wool slacks.

“Nobody had any reason to, until now. Brad's been missing for a while, and we ran out of leads. You'll see in the reports this guy was a little rough around the edges, so the possibilities were endless.”

“Yeah, we identified him from his criminal-history prints,” Mac said. “Did some dope a few years ago. Anything else you can tell us?”

“He ran with a snowboarding crowd up on Mount Hood. Struck me as a bunch of wannabe or has-been skiers who didn't want to grow up and get real jobs. Brad seemed to have real talent, though. He had a bunch of downhill-skiing medals from all over the country.”

Mac thumbed through the stack of reports. Other than the info on the trucker, Sam hadn't given him much more than what he'd learned from Dana. “We'll start by reviewing your reports and go from there. Will you be available to work this with us if the investigation points back to your territory?”

Sam's eyes lit up. “You bet. Just tell me when and where, and I'll be there. The sheriff would like to be kept abreast.”

“We'll be in touch after we look through the case file.” Mac thanked him for coming, then he and Kevin shook hands with him.

“Oh, one more thing,” Sam said. “I don't know if there's a connection, but the second day of the search, our guys came across some hunters. We interviewed them, checked their licenses—all legit. None of them had seen our missing hiker, so we just asked them to keep an eye out. Reason I mentioned it was that our guy might have taken a stray bullet. Lots of hunters that time of year. It's all in the report.”

“Hunters, huh? That's a real possibility.”Mac tucked his hands into his pocket. “Thanks for the heads-up. We'll check it out.”

18

P
RETTY SMOOTH, Mac; good to include him,” Kevin said as Deputy Wyatt pulled out.

“I know what it's like to lose a case you've put a lot of work into. I hated it when I was in patrol and would start a good drug case or an involved investigation from a traffic stop then have to turn it over to detectives.”

“He seems pretty squared away, so it's good to have him on our side if we end up spending much time up here,” Kevin said.

Kevin looked up at the trail. “Hey, I know you're familiar with this area, but I'd like to get a feel for the place. You can either walk it with me or sit in the car.”

Mac opted to walk with him, but only after getting his gloves out of the trunk and putting on his heavy jacket. Kevin did the same. Though Mac had hiked a good portion of the trail during the search, he wasn't all that familiar with the lay of the land. His trip up with Dana had been a first. One of the problems with living in the Northwest was that there were just too many great places to visit and not enough time to see them all.

The parking area nearest the trail to the falls was striped with spaces made for passenger cars, the other half of the lot for big rigs. That was where Jessica's trucker would have been parked— assuming there was a trucker.

The top of the waterfall seemed to hold its own clouds amid the relatively clear winter sky. Mac and Kevin studied the falls and the pool from the parking lot, then they walked along the creek fingering out from the pool.

Trooper Chris Ferroli pulled into the parking lot in his white Ford F-150 pickup. Mac easily recognized the truck as a State Police Fish and Wildlife vehicle by the three antennas on the roof and the two spare tires mounted upright in the bed of the pickup behind a large white toolbox.

“There's Chris,” Mac said.

Kevin turned momentarily to look, then he continued out of the parking lot to examine the creek more closely. “Go ahead. I'll join you in a minute.”

“Hey, Mac.” Chris jumped down from his elevated pickup. He was dressed in the department field uniform: wash-and-wear navy blue pants and shirt that didn't require dry cleaning. Due to their rustic assignments enforcing poaching laws and back-country investigations, game troopers were the only uniformed division of the OSP allowed to deviate from the spit-polished leather requirement. Mac missed the more casual dress but would never consider going back. He'd found his niche in detectives; and if what Kevin had said was true, he wasn't the only one who thought so.

“Thanks for coming out, Chris.” Mac reached for the trooper's hand as he approached the truck. “I really appreciate this. I didn't know if you'd get my voice mail in time.”

“No problem. Glad to help. I still can't believe what you guys found at autopsy.”

“Yeah, pretty wild.” Mac glanced back to Kevin, who seemed fixated by the thick wall of cascading water. “I hope you didn't put anything on hold to come out here; I really didn't know what to expect. Neither of us knows the area very well. I've hiked the trail above the falls, but that's about it.”

“Actually, I had some follow-up to do near Bonneville. I've been sitting on a report of a dumped black bear carcass. Sounds like it may be gall poached. The ice storm kept me out of the gorge for a while.”

“Gall poached?” Kevin asked, as he joined the two men.

“Howdy,” Chris greeted. “Detective Bledsoe, right?”

“Right. Morning, Chris.” Kevin shook his proffered hand.

“What was that about bear gallbladders?”

“Yeah, there's a ring working right now on black bears. They kill the bear for the gallbladder and paws, then they leave the rest to rot.”

“Seems like an odd thing to do.” Kevin grimaced.

“The gallbladder is prized in some cultures as having high medicinal value,” Mac told him. He'd learned about the prized bladders during his stint with Fish and Wildlife. “Once those things are dried and ground, they can go for hundreds of dollars an ounce.”

Chris nodded. “Between the novelty value of the paws and the gallbladder, a poacher could make over a thousand dollars a bear.”

“First I've heard of it.” Kevin shook his head. “What some people will do for money.”

“You got that right.”

“Say, Chris, do you know much about this area—the falls and the water flow in particular?”

“A little.” The men walked to the trailhead. “What do you want to know?”

“What can you tell us about Wah-kella Falls?”Kevin again studied the waterfall.

“Probably not much more than you already know.”

“You'd be surprised.” Mac chuckled. “About all I can tell you right now is that the land drops off up there and the water falls by gravitational force.”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “My partner, the genius.”

Mac ignored the jibe. “And we know we're just inside Hood River County.”

“Well, I'll see if I can enlighten you.” Chris nodded toward the end of the parking lot. “Take this trail to the east and you'll find yourself on the Eagle Creek trail system. The west trail winds up around to the south and eventually takes you up a steep grade to the top of the falls. Quite the hike, but the view from the top is worth the work. You guys know about the history of the falls and the jumpers?”

“We met a deputy here earlier who brought us up to speed,” Kevin said. “Sounds pretty grim.”

“A Hood River County deputy?”

“Yeah. Sam Wyatt,” Mac said. “You know him?”

“Sure do. Sam's good people.”

Kevin agreed. “Does this creek flow all way to the Columbia River?”

“All the way and at about the same depth and width as you see here.” Chris stepped to the side of the creek, pointing north along its banks.

Mac estimated the creek to be about two feet deep in the middle and only about twelve feet wide. There were a few small waterfalls and some white water as it cascaded over rocks hiding just beneath the surface.

“The creek is pretty much the same year-round,” Chris went on. “We get a nice steady coho salmon run in here in the fall. I have to keep pretty close watch on it when the run's in. Snaggers come out at night and drag 'em out left and right.”

“What's the weight on our victim, Mac?” Kevin was focused on the falls again.

Mac jogged to the car, pulled out the report, and thumbed through the preliminary pages. “About one-hundred-and-eighty pounds.” He put the report back and hurried to where the two men waited. “He was listed as being muscular and in good shape.”

“You think this creek would carry a man that size to the Columbia, Chris?”

“Hard to say.” Chris squinted at the flowing water. “My guess is no, unless there were some heavy rains.”

“It was raining pretty heavily during the search,” Mac said.

Chris wagged his head from side to side. “Yeah, but it would take a lot for this thing to rise much. I spent a few nights here in November when the coho were in, and I don't remember much of a difference. We can check with ODFW and get the info on the water flow from the stream checkers if we need.”