Woman in Shadow

by Carrie Stuart Parks

  I threw away the straw, picked up some twine, and wound it around my hand. Forensic analysis of writing was so much easier. I knew words were an attempt to communicate thoughts. I didn’t know that Mae was saying anything in her art. She may have just been drawing for pleasure.

  I tied the twine into a bow. I have nothing to lose by assuming a message.

  Back to the dogs. They were by the stream. Was it important that the dogs be by water? Dogs playing in the water, drinking from the stream. . . . the stream that flowed past the mine. I’d followed it down to here.

  But the miner had blown a hole in a vent, and now a geyser spewed boiling water and minerals into the creek.

  The temperature and taste would have changed, and the dogs would have reacted.

  A puzzle piece dropped into place. Either Mae noticed the dogs’ reaction to the change, or she saw it, tasted it as well.

  “I did it,” I whispered. “I know what you wanted to say.”

  The next drawing was the landscape with the snag. I couldn’t be positive on this, but I’d bet that snag was close to the mine. If so, the second piece of the puzzle was the location of the problem. She would have followed the stream to the mine.

  I raised my arms in a Rocky Balboa moment while the opening music played in my brain. Da da-da da, da da DA da da!

  I pictured the third drawing. It made sense.

  My stomach lurched. Two men in a cloud with two lines below. Not a cloud, a geyser. Spraying boiling water over the two men. The lines would be the mine cart rails.

  The miners hadn’t left because it was too dangerous. The two men were caught in the steam vent. In her searching for the change in the stream, she would have found them. Or maybe the dogs found them first. What would she have done? Buried them? Gone for help?

  Something nudged my memory, but every time I focused on it, it would scurry away. Maybe if I moved on, it would come to me.

  She’d drawn Roy next. If I guessed correctly that she went for help, then maybe she sought Roy and the Mule Shoe Ranch. Had she sketched the drawings for him? She wrote checks, so she was capable of writing, but based on her note, her skills were primitive. Wait. That note was written to throw off an investigation. She might have only been able to sign her name on a check. Could she communicate a more complex idea? Regardless, Roy said she left without anyone figuring out what she wanted to say. And that she’d been very upset.

  Or maybe Roy was lying. He’d locked himself in his office and didn’t go looking for Cookie after she told him the staff was AWOL. Because of that, Cookie almost died.

  Could Roy have sent for me to uncover any of this?

  I was getting a headache and not moving any closer to answers.

  Keep going to the next drawing. The sheriff. Had Mae gone to the sheriff with the sketches, and the sheriff didn’t understand? Understood but didn’t believe her? Could the sheriff be tied up in this somehow? After all, someone got off that helicopter. Another hole in the puzzle.

  I sighed in frustration. I’d started off well but didn’t know enough to decipher the rest of the drawings, and I had more questions than before. There had to be more clues, more evidence, more angles that I hadn’t yet figured out. Those answers were at the Mule Shoe.

  One thing I did know for sure: whatever Mae had been trying to convey, she’d been murdered for it.

  Chapter 27

  Discovering the body missing from the stall dried Bram’s mouth and sent his heart racing. The killer must have moved the corpse, but why? Cautiously he searched the rest of the area, but he could find no sign of the missing man.

  When they’d saddled the horses early this morning, he hadn’t thought to look over here. For usually being so careful, he’d been overlooking a lot lately. He cautiously opened the door to the center part of the barn. Bales of hay were stacked almost to the beams holding up the tin roof. He saw no sign of anyone lurking behind any of the bales.

  He wanted to sneeze from the dust in the air. Pinching his nose, he crawled up the bale-stacked stairs until he reached the top. He stayed out of sight of the door as he lifted and arranged the hay to create a blind. From his perch, he could watch anyone moving around most of the ranch as well as anyone entering this part of the barn. Now all he needed was a tall glass of cold water, a pain pill, and a gun.

  The horses were visible to his right, grazing contentedly, not the least worried about missing bodies or hidden killers.

  He realized he’d been staring at one horse, a large Appaloosa. It looked like the horse Darby had ridden this morning. He squinted to see better. A saddle-sized patch of dried sweat marked his back.

  His throat closed and he clenched his jaw.

  It was Darby’s horse.

  * * *

  The sun crept slowly across the sky. I’d grown drowsy when I heard the sound coming from the cleft in the rocks where I’d first slipped through. Hoofbeats.

  My heart hammered in my ears. I held my breath. Either the mule was returning, or the killer. I remained still, praying for a mule.

  The dogs stood and wagged their tails, staring at the rock opening.

  A brown head with large flappy ears appeared. The mule.

  I exhaled. Please come over and eat.

  As if hearing my thoughts, the mule continued to the sheltered feeder and grabbed a mouthful of hay.

  “Easy, big guy.” I stood up slowly so as not to frighten him.

  The mule backed away and trotted to the middle of the yard.

  I couldn’t let him get away. “Steady there, easy.” I fluffed the hay into what I hoped was an appetizing pile.

  His ears perked up. Slowly, cautiously, he again approached the feeder and stopped.

  I recognized the mule as the one I’d petted at the pasture. He wasn’t that shy if he’d come over to the fence. If I picked up his halter, he might stay calm.

  If he was only trained for packing, not riding, I could be in for a real rodeo. I needed something to hold on to should he decide to buck.

  I studied the sawbuck pack saddle. The design, most like the one Native Americans developed, had a wooden crosspiece, like a letter X, in the front and back where the panniers were hung. The crosspieces in turn were attached to a wooden saddlelike structure. It would be dangerous, and incredibly uncomfortable, to try to sit between the crosspieces. Fortunately, the rigging wasn’t attached. The double cinches going around the mule’s chest were fastened with latigo leather through a metal ring. I unfastened the cinches, then used the latigo to create a single piece of rigging. This would at least give me a chance to stay on his back. I left the breast collar, breeching, and back and hip straps in place so the entire thing would stay put.

  There seemed to be no evidence of a lead rope that I could use for reins, so I tied the baling twine together and fastened it to the halter. I stuffed extra twine in my pocket.

  The mule had been eyeing me while I created the makeshift tack. After twitching his ears back and forth a few times, he sauntered up to the feeder and started to eat.

  An apple or carrot would have been useful to keep him close. I doubted the mule would be thrilled with a slice of Spam. “How do you feel about people hopping up to you?”

  The mule perked up his ears at my voice.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I’d have to slide through the hole in the wall right next to him, stand, and slide the halter over his head, all in one movement. Then slip on the rigging, tighten it, and jump on. Easy-peasy.

  I slung the cinch over my shoulder, grabbed the rope halter, took a deep breath, and dove through the hole in the wall.

  The mule seemed unperturbed by my actions. He continued to eat, which was good. Mules could startle and land with both feet in a person’s back.

  I stood, looped a piece of twine around his neck, then put my hand over his nose and gently rubbed between his ears. He stiffened at my action, then relaxed. I knew mules had sensitive noses from their donkey side. When I felt we’d reached some level of understandin
g, I put on his halter. The breeching and hip and back straps were next, which would keep everything from sliding forward, followed by the breast collar, which kept things from sliding back. After looping the cinch and latigo around his chest, I tightened it.

  The mule’s ears tracked all my moves.

  The roof was low enough that should the mule decide to buck, I would be a candidate for a brain concussion or worse. I hoped he wouldn’t mind if I hopped around him a few times. He obediently turned and moved free of the shed.

  It was now or never. I leaped onto his back.

  He didn’t move.

  That wasn’t so bad—

  The first jaw-shattering buck almost threw me. I held on to both the latigo and his mane with both hands.

  He threw a couple of spine-cracking kicks, gave another buck, then shot toward the narrow slot in the rocks.

  I drew my legs up near his shoulders to keep from raking them against the rough stone. Once clear, he galloped hard toward a stand of pines with low-hanging branches.

  I pulled on the twine reins, but all I did was tear up my hands.

  He slowed and aimed for a large branch.

  “You’re a rotten, lop-eared . . .” I ducked forward and lay flat on his back, wrapping my arms around his neck.

  The rough bark scraped my back. Something ripped, and dried needles showered me.

  The mule stopped on the other side of the grove, breathing hard.

  “I’m staying on your back like bubble gum on a bedpost. Stop with the nonsense and let’s head to Mule Shoe. There’s food there, remember?”

  He put his ears back to listen to me, but otherwise remained stationary.

  Maverick and Holly had kept pace with the mule’s wild run. They sat and stared at us.

  The dogs had found their way to civilization before. Maybe they could inspire the mule to move. “Maverick, Holly, go home! Come on, guys, let’s go home. Kibble? Cookies?”

  The dogs perked up at my offer. They stood and began to walk south. The mule followed. Praise the Lord! Maybe the whole idea of God needs to be revisited. If I survive.

  I had no idea if we would walk in circles, stroll into downtown Targhee Falls, end up in Yellowstone, or fade into legend—the woman in shadow, riding a mule, with two ghostly dogs ever present at her side. At least we were moving.

  My stomach reminded me that the last food I’d eaten was sometime yesterday. The granola bar had disappeared when I was taken to the mine. I was starving. Spam with cheese and refried beans now seemed like gourmet food.

  The sun was dropping in the sky. If these animals were heading home, they didn’t need the sun and would be able to find it even in the dark. But if no one had arrived to help at the resort, I’d be riding right into the middle of a spree killer’s hunting ground.

  Of course, if the killer had followed me, as I believed he had, then had he gone back to the resort or after another rider?

  We continued south and a bit east. Nothing looked familiar, just ponderosa pines, mountains, mountains, and more mountains. The mule grew sweaty under my legs, and I’m sure my deodorant had given up as well. At least bears, cougars, wolves, and other critters downwind of us would move on.

  Thirst joined my hunger. To take my mind off my dry mouth and empty stomach, I thought about the drawings. If I read Mae’s sketches correctly, she’d tried to tell Roy, then the sheriff, about the mine accident. Could she have drawn their unequal faces to show their hidden reaction? Roy was too defeated to be of help? The sheriff worried about something?

  The thought that had drifted in the back of my head crystallized. What happened to the bodies of the miners? Did Mae give up on getting help? Did she return and bury them? Maybe that square of dead grass wasn’t a tent site. Maybe it was a grave.

  We’d reached a small gulch with a brook, sulfur-laden steam rising from it, and a cattail-lined pond. The mule carefully picked his way around ground squirrel holes, pausing at the pond where he and the dogs took a drink. I was thirsty, but this could easily be the home of a bevy of beavers.

  If Mae did bury . . . No, she disappeared in March. At this altitude there would still be snow on the frozen ground.

  One rather nasty thought emerged. Mae had two dogs, and dogs . . . well, she’d need to do something about their bodies. There was no way the dogs would leave them alone. Maybe she dragged their scalded bodies out of the mine and to a snowbank to keep them frozen until—

  Scalded.

  Just like the men who died in the arson fire. That would mean that in a county of thirteen thousand people, four different men were scalded to death around the same time. Coincidence? Right.

  What if the appearance of Mae at Mule Shoe and possibly the sheriff’s department alerted someone that something had gone wrong?

  The story of an exploding hot water tank had sounded hinky from the start. But what if the two men hadn’t died that way? What if they were already dead? Fremont County usually didn’t perform autopsies, Bram had said, which would have established time of death.

  What if someone decided to hide the bodies by staging a fire in the middle of a series of fires? I pictured sitting at the table with Bram, arson notes in front of me. I’d shown him one of the notes and told him it was different. He’d identified it as the fire where the bodies were found.

  Why go to the trouble of dragging two stinking corpses into town, setting it up to look like one of the arson fires, even writing the note? So their bodies were burned . . . because . . . because . . .

  I was too tired to think, to figure out the answer. Even if the ground were frozen, the chances of someone finding their bodies, outside of someone like Mae, would be remote. People disappear all the time in the wilderness.

  The mule finished drinking and started forward. A densely forested hillside was directly ahead.

  I’d been assuming the two men would be missed. They could have been transient, and no one might have realized they were gone for months, even years, if ever.

  Hopefully I wasn’t in the same category. If anyone realized I’d gone missing, they’d look for me. To improve my chances of being found, I’d need to be in a cleared area like this . . .

  Search. When someone went missing in a remote area, an extensive search was launched.

  The bodies were put in a place they would be found, because if they simply disappeared, people would look for them and discover the mine.

  Was the mine at the center of this puzzle?

  I patted the chunk of black ore in my pocket. I wished I knew something about geology. Roy had talked about Idaho being the Gem State, about the rocks in his collection, but he said he wasn’t an expert. His geologist guest was the expert.

  And she was dead. A rather convenient turn of events? The only person in the area who would instantly know the value of what I held in my hand had died in an accident at Devil’s Keyhole. Another coincidence? Yeah. Right again.

  Bram had said something about that accident. I chewed my lip and dredged my memory. We’d been sitting outside under the trees. Bram had smiled, showing those perfect teeth, and placed his hand over mine, then said, “Then we need to work together.”

  My face grew warm and I clutched the twine reins. Focus. I didn’t have time to think about feelings. I squeezed the reins harder, digging my fingernails into my already abraded palms until the pain brought tears to my eyes.

  Something about maps. The hikers were not supposed to be at the Devil’s Keyhole. Bram said that the maps found on them showed they had strayed miles from where they were supposed to be. They were supposed to be east of where they were found, which would place them in the area of the mine.

  Mae’s second landscape drawing of the old snag showed two hikers. Another coincidence? Yeah, no. I wasn’t buying it. The hikers probably didn’t have an autopsy either.

  Their bodies had been found quickly by a Fish and Game officer looking for poachers. Yet a third coincidence?

  “I’d bet my last dollar that the officer was tipped o
ff about the location of a poacher. No searching for lost hikers.”

  A vent had opened into a mine and killed two miners. A domino effect of death followed with the two hikers, who probably found the mine, followed by Mae. Then the death and murder stopped.

  Until yesterday.

  “The deaths stopped, but someone kept trying to sabotage the Mule Shoe. That’s why I was brought here.” Somehow, speaking out loud made me feel less alone in the middle of this wilderness.

  After I arrived, things began to happen, alleged accidents. Riccardo? I had my doubts from the beginning that his fall was an accident. Dee Dee? Could that wagon brake have been tampered with just before we left? Definite murders of the two workers. Two more attempts with Cookie and Angie. If the dogs hadn’t helped me get out of the mine shaft, I would have been another statistic.

  Why kill a group of people attending an art class? Wait. If Bram’s speculation was correct and a staff member was the intended pitchfork victim, no guest had been attacked. Dee Dee was an accident—even if the brake had been tampered with, no one would have known she’d be in the wagon.

  So the staff had been singled out. Why now? Because . . . because something changed? What changed? Roy sold the Mule Shoe. The earlier events—broken pipes, horseback riding accident, hikers’ deaths, loss of the insurance coverage—could have been designed to drive down the price of the resort and force Roy to sell. If so, that behavior pointed directly at someone on the staff. An inside man.

  Once the resort sold, the next step might be for the conniving buyer to eliminate that inside man and any potential witnesses. And to send the current guests away with tainted water, a dead raccoon, and the threat of a bear.

  Madam Sparkles—Stacy—may have wanted a personal source for gemstones. Grace had enough money to buy the Mule Shoe a dozen times over. She might want to turn Mule Shoe into an environmental retreat. Come to think of it, even Teddy Rinaldi could want the resort.

  Somehow I had to get to my cabin and go through the papers Roy gave me. If I knew the name of the buyer, maybe I could figure this out.

  The biggest question I kept circling around was what was the exit strategy? How was someone going to explain all those dead bodies once the sheriff showed up? What was the ultimate motive?