Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (312 page)

A quick search of the bag revealed only one other corner stake. Jethro was scrutinizing the bag. He lifted it to peer underneath. Even Green could see the gouges in the ground around it.

“I think this bag was dropped from a height.” Jethro searched the surroundings. There were no hills or cliffs. “Maybe even from a plane.”

They exchanged looks. Read each other’s minds. “Hunter Kerry,” Green said. “That’s what he was doing when he flew over here. The bastard. He’s in on it.” He shoved himself to his feet. “You keep looking for Hannah. I’ll call this in.”

Green watched Jethro set off with Tatso before phoning Sullivan back to relay the latest discoveries. “Get the RCMP to find out about this company and to question Hunter Kerry about his involvement. Find out what the bastard knows. And keep an eye open for other stakes between the cabin and here.”

“None around the cabin, Mike. We’ve just finished another search and there’s no sign the ground has been disturbed. Or …”

It was a small relief, but Green seized it like a drowning man. “How long till backup gets there?”

“Probably not till the morning. The fog’s still a problem farther east.”

“Fuck!”

“But we’re on our way. Hang in there.”

Green’s respite from panic was brief as he contemplated the impossible task ahead. One lone little girl, probably blind with fear and grief, was stumbling around in this vast, unforgiving land. He walked back down the slope toward Scott’s body. It needed to be guarded against animals and covered with a tarp to protect it from the elements. Whatever Hannah’s fate, this murdered young man might hold the answers to what had transpired between the foursome on this tragic trip.

He was anchoring the tarp with boulders when he heard a shout from farther upstream. It was Jethro calling. Green abandoned the tarp and rushed over the uneven shore, slipping and stumbling over the wet rocks. Some distance up, he found Jethro waiting for him on the shore. He gestured to a narrow animal trail barely visible through the willows, leading away from the stream.

“I think I’ve found something,” he said as he followed the trail. “Watch your step, it’s muddy. Moose, bear, wolf, they all use this path to get to the water, but up here …” He stopped and stepped off the trail. Squatting, he pointed to the trampled ground. “This is a human boot print. Not as recent as the wolf tracks, but still visible. In the last couple of days, I’d say.”

Green leaned over. The print was small and made a shallow indent in the ground. He held his breath.

“If we go further,” Jethro was saying, stepping over the print to carry on up the trail, “we see more of them. Here and here …”

The next print was overlaid with a paw print, too large to be Tatso. A wolf. With an effort, Green pulled his attention back to Jethro, who was squatted over another print. He laid his tracking stick on the ground and moved it back and forth across the rutted soil.

“She’s running now,” he said. “The strides are far apart, the impact heavier. And she’s digging in with her toe.”

“She?”

Jethro smiled. “Yes, she. She’s getting away.”

Green had to put his hand down to steady himself. Emotion closed his throat. He pictured her scrambling up the trail, terrified, lost, stones tripping her and branches tearing her limbs. Breath ragged, not daring even to scream.

Chapter Twenty-Two

 “W
e can’t wait for them,” Green said. “We have to go after her.”

The fact that a man was lying dead with a bullet in his chest and his daughter was running away didn’t bear thinking about. There would be an explanation — an accident, a struggle, self-defence. Pete had said Scott had gone crazy. Perhaps he had turned on her and she’d reacted the only way she could. Hannah hated guns, but she was a fighter. Enraged or cornered, she could be a firestorm.

He couldn’t think about that now. He had to take it one step at a time, follow her tracks, find her, make her safe. And only then would he worry about the explanation.

Jethro stood on the path behind him and folded his arms over his chest, expressionless. “We wait. They’ll make good time with the GPS, and it’s much safer to travel together.”

“But every hour we wait, we lose precious daylight.”

Jethro smiled. “There are eighteen hours of daylight. For now, we wait. And we eat.”

Green knew he was right, but that was no comfort. His stomach was in knots. Leaving Jethro to unpack the food, he climbed to the top of a nearby rise and looked out. The fog still hovered over the mountain peaks but slivers of sunlight shot through. Touched the valley floor. A small lake glistened in the distance, nestled between rolling hills.

On a distant slope he caught movement and a flash of white, but when he trained his binoculars it was two Dall’s sheep bounding across the alpine grass. He swept the binoculars slowly across the landscape. Nothing.

He cupped his hands. “Hannah!”

Her name echoed over the endless folds of land, inconsequential, like a pebble dropped into the ocean.

“Haan-nahhh!”

He listened to the ripples of sound until they faded away. No answer came back to him.

He circled the rise, calling in all directions, before acknowledging it was futile. When one is running, one hears only the pounding of footfalls on the ground, the crunch of gravel, and the ragged gasps of one’s own breath. He walked back down the hill. Jethro handed him a hot cup of tea and the two ate in silence. By the end of lunch, there was still no sign of the other two men. Green paced. He cursed. And finally he climbed the rise again and called the Fort Simpson RCMP.

Sergeant Nihls sounded brusque and harried, but he took the time to outline his plans to fly in additional SAR and crime-scene personnel first thing in the morning. These latest developments have brought the original death of Daniel Rothman into question as well, he said.

“Any intel yet on this company Northern Rubicom?”

“Not been much time to work on that, Inspector. But I did ask Yellowknife HQ to look into it. So far they have just the obvious information. It’s a new company, registered in March of this year. Two partners, each in for a hundred thousand.”

“What are their names?”

“Not our subjects. Two professors. Dr. Valencia of Vancouver and Dr. Anil Elatar of Waterloo, Ontario. One’s a geologist, the other a mining engineer. A sensible combination for the start-up phase, I might add.”

Green sucked in his breath. Valencia was the thesis advisor both Scott and Pete had fallen out with. “Any business activity in this company yet? Any mining claims or other assets?”

“Yellowknife HQ is looking into that. So far there are no claims registered at the Recorder’s Office.”

“What about Hunter Kerry? What does he know?”

“Mr. Kerry is being uncooperative. So far. But we’ll work on that. For my money, he’s just an errand boy. No one would trust him with any serious responsibility.”

Green revised his earlier opinion of the man. In a pinch, Nihls was proving a capable leader. Green thanked him and rang off, now more puzzled than ever. He tried to link the information together to see where it led. Both Scott and Pete were reportedly against mining development, and yet Scott had devised this whole adventure trip as a pretext for tracking down his grandfather’s old ruby claim. Scott claimed to feel so strongly about mining that he had thrown his geology career out the window and walked out on the geology advisor who only a month later founded a mining company with the suggestive name of Northern Rubicom. Now someone working on behalf of that company — Scott, Pete, or someone else? — had planned to stake a claim to that very ruby mine Scott had been seeking.

Nihls thought Hunter Kerry was peripheral, yet he had been the one to fly the party in the first place, and the will and the initial clues about the mining claim had “accidentally” been left in his plane. Quite the coincidence.

It felt like a Chinese puzzle, with the solution just one twist away. But the more he worked one twist free, another twist emerged. He knew his mind was only firing on one cylinder, and the more frustrated he became the more scrambled his thoughts. He was grateful when Tatso’s loud barking announced the arrival of Sullivan and Elliott.

After a quick exchange of updates, Sullivan drew Green aside. His broad, freckled face looked pinched. “How you holding up?”

Green shrugged. He didn’t dare open the door to his feelings. “I just want to find her.”

Sullivan nodded. “Where’s the body?”

Green led him back down the stream to the tarp. Sullivan squatted down, peeled back the tarp, and studied the body quietly. He poked the toes, the hands, and the head. Then he gazed at the horizon, his eyes narrowed. “Rigour’s dissipating but still present in the legs. Buried like this, with the cold nights, hard to say. What do you think?”

“Thirty-six to forty-eight hours?”

Sullivan nodded. “So she’s been out there, on her own for almost two days.” He prodded the stony ground thoughtfully. “How big is Hannah?”

Green stared at him. Sullivan knew perfectly well how big she was. Barely five feet. “What does that mean?”

“I know people can summon incredible strength when they’re desperate, but burying him like this would have taken hours. More like deliberate intent than desperate impulse. The question is, why bother digging such a deep hole in this hard soil?”

Green shrugged. He’d not lingered on that puzzle, merely assumed she wanted to cover up the killing. But now, as he walked through the scenario in her shoes, he could see the flaw in that logic. Why would Hannah, panicked and overwhelmed, have taken the time and effort to bury him?

Another possible scenario came to mind. Perhaps the killing had been a desperate act of self-defence or accident, but in her grief and guilt afterward she had resolved to give him a loving burial. That way his body wouldn’t be ravaged or carried off in bits by wolves and crows. Hannah had the steel determination to carry out such an act, but did she have the strength?

“I don’t know, Brian. Let’s hope we get a chance to ask her.” He drew the tarp back over the body and began to pile the heavy stones on top. “We can’t do any more for him. Let’s get the hell away from here.”

They found the other two on the rocky slope farther upstream. Elliott was squatting on the ground beside the mining stakes. His topographical map was spread out on the ground and he was shaking his head.

“Interesting. Presumably the other two corner stakes are already in the ground somewhere.”

“Is it still legal with only two?” Sullivan asked.

Elliott shook his head and consulted his map. “I doubt this claim is legal anyway. It’s outside the present park, yes, but remember, the government is in negotiations about a new park up here. The boundaries aren’t decided yet, but all resource development on the land has been frozen until a decision is made. Mining interests are fighting hard to keep this area outside the boundaries because there is so much mineral potential in these mountains. There is already a mine quite close to here in Lened Creek and another being considered for just the other side of the Little Nahanni River.”

Green and Sullivan clustered around the map as Elliott traced his finger down the river. Green was studying the map for clues to where Hannah might go, but Sullivan was listening intently. “When will this boundary be decided?”

“Who knows?” Elliott grinned. “This is the Canadian government we’re talking about. No matter which way they go, they know there will be howls of protest. But right now Canada needs all the economic stimulus it can get, and the present government has few qualms about the environment, so I’m guessing the mining interests will win out.”

“So this claim could be okay?”

“In the future, but not while the freeze is on. That’s why the date is not filled in yet. I’m guessing either they’re just hoping to get the jump on it —”

“Or they know something the public doesn’t.” Sullivan’s eyes were grim with suspicion.

Green broke in impatiently. “How close are we to the Little Nahanni River?”

Elliott measured with his fingernail. “Only a couple of kilometres.”

“How wide is it?”

“At this point? A good size. And fast moving.” He glanced at Green. “She couldn’t get across without a raft or boat.”

“So she’s going to be trapped.”

“Assuming she goes that way,” Jethro said. “We don’t have any idea where she’s going, or even whether she has a map. We found no gear with the body, so she may have it all.”

“I’m assuming only one thing,” Green said grimly. “That she’s trying to find a way out. So let’s get tracking.”

Because both Sullivan and Green had developed some skill in reading the ground by this time, Jethro took the lead with his tracking stick but spread the other three out in a horizontal line behind him to search for signs. Slowly but surely they worked their way across the slope, saying little as they concentrated all their attention on the ground. At one point Jethro squatted and measured, then nodded.

“She’s stopped running. Maybe she’s not as scared.”

Or she’s exhausted, Green thought, but he said nothing. A few moments later the land dipped sharply toward a ravine below and Jethro stopped. He carefully moved some loose stones ahead.

“She fell here. Probably slipped.” He moved a few yards farther and pointed. “Blood.”

A single drop glistened on a rock, so tiny that Green was astonished he’d seen it.

“Not a serious injury,” Sullivan said. Too quickly, Green thought. Thanks for trying, my friend, but I know all too well the danger she’s in. Would the bleeding attract the wolves? Or bears? When he asked, Elliott pursed his lips.

“Any scent attracts animals,” he said. “Even hand soap. But wolves are shy. If there is plentiful game, they won’t bother her.”

They picked their way down the ravine into the softer grass below. Here, a ribbon of flattened grass was clearly visible. “She’s limping,” Jethro said.

“How close are we?” Green asked.

“She was here, maybe yesterday?”

His heart sank. Still so far behind. Each time Jethro paused to study the ground, he chafed. They were moving more slowly than she was. Losing ground every moment. How were they ever going to catch up? By late afternoon, as he scanned the surrounding hills for the hundredth time, he spotted a familiar bluff.