Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (311 page)

Finally he spotted a small scrap of green tucked deep in the trees. It blended so well into the landscape that it was barely visible through the canopy. If Chris hadn’t known their canoe was green, he would never have noticed it. He circled and flew lower, skimming the river as he tried to make out details. It was a canoe all right, stashed out of sight.

The rest of the gear, and the two paddlers, were nowhere in sight.

At the last second, he spotted the cliff ahead. He pulled up sharply just before the canyon walls, clipping the tops of the spruce trees on the clifftop. Heart pounding, he climbed high into the sky to catch his breath. Questions crowded in. Had they gone inland? Had they arranged a rendezvous? Cresting the mountain peak, he headed north over the inland creeks. He scanned the ground below for signs of them. Nothing but wilderness. Endless wilderness. He felt as if he’d been staring at wilderness for days. Steadying the plane, he radioed Nihls to report his findings.

“Sir,” he added, “I think we need to send a team in by boat down the Little Nahanni. ASAP, sir.”

He listened to the man mutter as if he were studying the map. Finally he grunted. “Duly noted, Constable. For now, let’s hold off. We’ll have helicopters in the air and men on the ground out there soon. Once I have the search commander’s report —”

“Sir, all that takes time. If you fly the equipment and personnel up here to the mine, I can have us on the water this afternoon.”

More silence. “As I said, Constable, duly noted. Meanwhile, you work from the air and coordinate your search sectors with the field CO.”

Chris checked his frustration. He peered one last time out his side window at the tangle of creek beds below. “There is one thing to note, sir. If Whitehead and Manning are going straight inland, as I assume, and Scott Lasalle continues his route southwest, the two groups are going to intersect.”

Nihls muttered. “How soon?”

“Depends on their speed and terrain. It’s pretty rough out there, and unless they know the terrain —”

“We assume they don’t.”

Chris didn’t argue. He had given up assuming anything. He didn’t know what anyone was planning, nor what they were capable of. It seemed safe only to assume the worst.

“Tomorrow some time is my guess,” he said. “Time is ticking.”

Nahanni, July 26

Green hunched over the fire and cradled his coffee cup, trying to draw every bit of warmth from it. Everything was wet. Their tents, the ground, the firewood, the tarp under which all their gear was stored. Moisture dripped from the overhanging spruce boughs. The morning dew had been heavy and now fog suspended them in nothingness.

Jethro had already been out scouting the area and had returned with two fish caught in a nearby stream. Fried up over the fire with bannock, fish had never tasted so good.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Green said, “but thanks for this.”

“The fish gave themselves to me,” Jethro replied, deadpan. “They knew we needed them.”

Green eyed him across the smouldering flames. “Do you believe that?”

Jethro grinned. “I don’t disbelieve it. I walk two worlds. I didn’t used to, when I was at res school and university. But there is a lot of wisdom in the traditions of my ancestors. The Dene belong to the land. We take care of the land and it takes cares of us. We have survived for millennia because we listen to the land and respect the spirit of all things. I know about science, but I also know these waters, these trees, and these mountains have a lot to tell us. You have to feel their spirit.”

“Right now I feel only myself,” Green replied. “My aching feet. My fear. Can the trees speak to me? Tell my where my daughter is? Tell me she is safe?”

“Well, we can ask them. Whether they’ll talk to you is another story. They probably know you don’t much like them.”

Green glanced across at Jethro’s solemn face. Irrepressibly, he laughed. His sodden spirits lifted. They had made slow progress the day before, inching their way across marshes and over rocky bluffs. But instead of heading straight southwest, the trail was erratic, as if Scott were lost and overwhelmed. Or crazy. By the time the light grew too dim, there was still no sign of them.

But this was a new day. A fresh day. And suddenly Green felt anxious to get on with it. Anywhere, it didn’t matter. He tossed the dregs of his coffee on the ground and stood up.

“You won’t stumble upon her walking around out there without a plan,” Jethro said. “This isn’t the city. This is a thousand times bigger than any city. You need to watch for the signs the land gives us.”

While Jethro brewed a second pot of strong, hot coffee to fill their thermoses, Green began walking around the area, practising his newly acquired tracking skills. But he could see nothing but rock and spruce and emptiness. A moment later Jethro appeared, striding confidently with Tatso at his heels.

“Tatso found the trail,” Jethro said calmly. “It is not the smartest trail, not the fastest, easiest route to take.”

They followed the dog as she led the way back and forth across a narrow creek bed toward a distant slope shrouded in mist. Clumps of pink and blue wildflowers dotted the path.

“Monkshood,” said Jethro with a chuckle. “Very poisonous if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Crime scene investigation would sure be different out here,” Green replied. They were almost up the creek and he was breathless from the climb. Tatso was ranging ahead, her tail waving and her nose to the ground. She searched in a tight, zigzag pattern, and each time they crossed the stream, Jethro sent her out again. After the third such crossing, Tatso began to roam back and forth, following trails that seemed to disappear and loop over each other. Her tongue was lolling and her tail whipping with frustration.

Green’s experience with dogs was limited to Modo, his hundred-pound rescued mutt that admittedly was not a typical example of the species. But he thought Tatso looked excited and confused.

“She is,” Jethro agreed as they stopped for a coffee break to watch the dog track. “Something strange is going on. She follows any human scent, but she’s acting like there are several, going in different directions.”

“You mean Hannah and Scott are going in different directions?” Green pictured his daughter in a panic, running to escape the madman her lover had become.

Jethro shrugged. “Maybe they’re just collecting firewood.”

After the coffee break, Jethro set off again to try to pick up the trail amid the maze of conflicting clues. Tatso had disappeared through the trees toward the slope, and as Green stood on the creek bank he was struck by the solitude. The silence was absolute, save for the trickle of water over the stones. No planes, no cars, no hum of human life. Even the songbirds were quiet, and only a single red squirrel chattered at him from a high branch.

The fog had lifted but the grey clouds hung close and heavy over the land. Green shut his eyes. Tried to feel the spirit that Jethro described. He just felt trapped. Closed in by the land, unable to see the sky or the distant glacial peaks that soared above.

Tatso barked, once, twice, followed by silence. Jethro emerged from the trees and beckoned to him. “She’s found something,” he said once Green reached him. He gestured to the dog, wagging her tail some distance away, alert and intent. They both followed her to a soft marshy dip in the land. Here she stopped, her nose to the ground. To Green’s astonishment, she began to dig.

“Something is buried there,” said Jethro, heading over to join her. Her digging was determined, focused, even a little frantic. Loose clumps of grass flew back from her paws. Jethro extracted a small, folding shovel from his backpack and began to dislodge large rocks from the soil. Green joined him, tearing at the rocks with his bare hands.

Five minutes later, Jethro gave a little cry. He fell to his knees and began to paw the dirt. Green stared. His mind refused to analyze. Even when the first fingers were uncovered, he refused to acknowledge the possibility.

One careful shovelful at a time, they unearthed the body. Jethro had tied Tatso to a tree to prevent her from interfering. Belatedly the police officer in Green’s screaming brain snapped into gear and he fetched his camera. Only by an extreme effort at detachment was he able to photograph the remains as they emerged. Fingers, hand, arm, shoulder. Jethro brushed the debris away carefully. The fingers were almost perfectly formed. Brown, curled, unmarred by decay or insects.

A recent burial, Green realized. He’d been concentrating on the camera, but now he stared at the hand. Lean fingers, short blunt nails, broad palm. Not Hannah’s, his mind looped over and over. Not Hannah’s hand at all.

Together they uncovered the hip and left leg. The body was lying on its side with the head thrown back and out of sight. Slowly they began to dig around it, freeing up the neck, the ear, the jaw, the strings of short, dark hair. No piercings, no blue tips, no pointed pixie jaw. Green fought a lump in his throat as he dared to hope.

When the head was entirely excavated, both Jethro and Green squatted beside it staring. The hair was short and dark, the eyes wide and filled with sandy grit. Despite the opaque, milky film, they looked blue.

Like Green’s, Hannah’s eyes were hazel.

He studied the full length of the body. Even dressed in jacket, jeans and hiking boots, it looked tall and lean. He tried to conjure up the photos he’d seen on the Internet, of Pete Carlyle, Daniel Rothman, and Scott Lasalle. One was lying dead at the bottom of a cliff, another cowering in fear in the cabin they had left. The third was here.

“It’s Scott Lasalle,” he breathed when he dared put his thoughts into words. “Scott Lasalle is dead. That means my daughter …” His brief surge of euphoria died. “My God, she’s wandering around out here all by herself!”

Jethro was very still. His steady brown eyes rested on Green. “He didn’t bury himself.”

Green’s thoughts floundered. “Maybe … Maybe she buried the body so the wolves wouldn’t get at it.” He leaned forward for a closer look at the body and gently brushed some dirt from the man’s chest. Revealed the jacket, ragged and stained, with a hole ripped through the centre of it and a familiar red stain blooming out over the fabric.

Green fell back on his heels, fighting for breath. Suicide? Please let it be suicide. He forced himself to poke through the hole to feel the path of the bullet. Straight in, angled slightly down. It could have hit half a dozen vital spots — arteries, stomach, heart, spleen — causing massive internal bleeding that would have killed the man in minutes. There were no powder burns on the jacket. No suicide would have created such a wound.

He forced words through his dry, numb lips. “We need to excavate the rest of him. Search for the weapon. We need to photograph —”

“We need to notify the RCMP,” Jethro countered quietly.

Up on a rock, out of earshot and in satellite range, Green called Sullivan. He relayed the news along with their estimated coordinates, and asked him to inform the RCMP. “I don’t know where Hannah is. For all I know, she’s underneath …” His voice cracked. He dragged air into his lungs. “She doesn’t know how to fire a gun. She hates guns. She couldn’t have done this.”

“Mike —”

“We have to ask that bastard Pete —”

“Mike!”

“What?”

“We’re here at the cabin. Pete’s not here.”

Sullivan phoned back an hour later. By that time Green and Jethro had methodically excavated a deep circular trench and laid bare the young man’s entire body. Besides the bullet hole in his chest, he had scratches on his hands and face that were still fresh and bleeding at the time of his death. Green photographed each carefully. The pathologist would be the one to determine whether they were inflicted by tree branches or human nails.

Careful digging had turned up no sign of another body underneath. The ground under Scott was rocky and difficult to penetrate, as if it had been undisturbed for a long time. There was no knapsack, no rifle or gear of any kind. Green had sent Jethro off with Tatso to scout the area. He had told him to look for human tracks, but they both knew the main reason. If there was another body or burial site, Tatso would find it.

“Any news?” Sullivan’s voice was very faint.

“Nothing so far.” Green stood up, unable to say more. As he walked up to higher ground, he fought for composure. “No sign of her.”

“I’d say that’s good news, Mike. We’ve got a search team coming in to help you. Just have to get the helicopter in place. The fog is holding things up a bit. And the RCMP is going to drop in a crime scene team from Yellowknife too.”

“I’ve dug him up.”

“They won’t be pleased.”

“I don’t give a fuck. I had to see if she was there with him.”

“I get it, Mike. Ian Elliott and I are on our way —”

“No, wait. I need you to search the vicinity of the cabin.”

“We’ve done that. He’s not here.”

“For her. For … a burial site.”

Silence. “She’s alive, Mike.”

“I know. But …”

“Okay, but we’ll get to you as soon as we can.”

Green had just hung up when he spotted Jethro coming across the slope toward him. His face was tense with excitement.

Green’s hopes leaped. “You found her?”

“No, but I found something you should see.”

He led the way farther up the hill with long, loping strides. The meadow thinned to loose, stony soil dotted with boulders left eons ago by glaciers. The whole area looked undisturbed, but hidden in the shadow of one boulder was a large canvas bag. It was open, and a dozen wooden stakes were strewn on the ground. They were numbered, and Green saw that one had a shiny metal plaque on its side. On the plaque was a number, a name, and a partial date: N
orthern
R
ubicom
, a blank space, and
2012
.

He straightened. “This is very recent. Not an old stake!”

Jethro nodded. “My guess is Scott was getting ready to stake the claim when he was killed.”

“And what the fuck is Northern Rubicom? His company?”

“Probably. There should be at least three other stakes in the bag, one for each corner of the claim. Unless he got them in the ground before he was killed.”