by Cindi Myers
Travis turned to Brodie. “Who else does he know who might trust him?” he asked. “Answer that question and we might be able to figure out who his next victim will be.”
“We could start by interviewing single women in town, find out who else he—or Tim—might have dated in the weeks they’ve been here,” Brodie said.
“Emily mentioned a woman he dated in Fort Collins,” Travis said. “She dropped him because he wanted to strangle her while they were having sex.”
Brodie scowled. “Maybe he planned to keep on choking her until she was dead.” The more he learned about Alex, the greater his urgency to stop him.
“I’ll ask to dig a little deeper. Maybe he had another girlfriend who came here for a visit and we haven’t heard about her yet.” He started the SUV and pulled out to turn around. But before he could make the turn, the man in the hard hat and orange vest ran toward them, waving his arms. Travis stopped and rolled down his window. “What is it?” he asked.
The man stopped beside the SUV, hands on his knees, panting. “We...found something,” he gasped. “A car. And there’s a woman inside.”
* * *
“POOR RUTH.” EMILY’S first thought on hearing of Renee Parmenter’s death was of her sister. Yes, Renee had suffered at the hands of a murderer, but Ruth had to live with the knowledge that the person she loved had been taken so brutally. “I guess there’s no doubt Renee was murdered?”
“No,” Travis said. “She was killed just like the others.”
“Alex even left his Ice Cold calling card,” Brodie said. He and Travis flanked Emily on the living room sofa. A fire crackled in the woodstove across from them and a pile of wedding gifts that had been delivered when the road reopened waited on a table against the wall. Everything looked so ordinary and peaceful, which made the news of Renee’s murder all the more disorienting.
“Have you told Ruth yet?” Emily asked.
“No,” Travis said. “I was on my way there after I talked to you.”
“I want to go with you,” she said. “Maybe it will make it a little easier on her if she has a friend there.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Travis said. He stood. “Let’s go see Ruth. If we wait too long, she might hear about this from someone else, and we don’t want that.”
By the time Ruth answered Travis’s knock, Emily could see she had prepared herself for the worst. Her gaze slid past Emily and fixed on Travis. “Have you found her?” she asked, her voice tight, as if she had to force the words out.
“May we come in?” he asked.
She stepped back to let them pass. The house was an older one, with nineties-era blond wood and brass fixtures, the room cluttered with toys and shoes and a pile of laundry on one end of the sofa. A large window looked out onto pastures and hayfields, now covered with snow. “The kids are in school and my husband is out checking fences,” Ruth said as she led the way to the sofa. She moved a child’s book off the sofa and picked up a pillow from the floor, then sat, holding the pillow in her lap. “Tell me what you’ve found. It can’t be anything worse than I’ve already imagined.”
Travis removed his hat and sat across from Ruth while Emily settled in next to her. “We found your sister’s body at the top of Dixon Pass, in her car,” Travis said. “She was murdered—probably by Alex Woodruff.”
Ruth made a short, sharp sound and covered her mouth with her hand. Emily took her other hand and squeezed it. Ruth held on tightly and uncovered her mouth. “When?” she asked.
“The car was buried by the avalanche that closed the road on Tuesday morning,” Travis said. “She was killed before then.”
Ruth closed her eyes, visibly pulling herself together. “Is there someone you’d like me to call?” Emily asked. “Your husband, or a friend?”
“Bob will be in soon.” She opened her eyes, which shone with unshed tears. “If you know who did this, why don’t you arrest him and stop him?” she asked.
“When we find Alex, we’ll arrest him,” Travis said. “Do you have any idea where he might be hiding? That night you and your husband met him, did he say anything at all that might give us a clue?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. We talked about school and the dance and the weather—just ordinary small talk among people who didn’t know each other well.”
“And you’re sure Renee never mentioned seeing or talking to him after that night?” Travis asked.
“No. I really don’t think she heard from him or saw him after that one date,” Ruth said.
“You said you didn’t like him,” Travis said. “Maybe knowing that, she decided not to talk about him.”
“Renee wasn’t like that,” Ruth said. “If she liked someone and I didn’t, she would have made a point of mentioning him, just to give me a hard time.” She shook her head. “She was really definite about not wanting to see him again. If he had called and asked her out again, she would have been on the phone to me as soon as she hung up with him.” Her breath caught, and she swallowed, then added, her voice fainter, “That’s how we were. We talked about everything.”
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Travis said. He stood, hat in hand. “Once the medical examiner has completed his autopsy, we’ll release the body to the funeral home of your choice. Call my office if you have any questions.”
Ruth stood and walked with them to the door. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay until your husband gets here?” Emily asked.
“I’ll be okay.” She took a shuddering breath. “I do better with this kind of stuff on my own—but thank you.”
Emily squeezed her arm. “Call me if you need anything. Or if you just want to talk.”
Ruth nodded, then looked at Travis again. “You’ll find him and stop him, won’t you?” she asked, the words more plea than query.
“Yes,” he said.
He and Emily didn’t say anything until they were almost back to the sheriff’s department. “Denise was killed the same day,” Emily said. “Right before the avalanche. And her car was found at the top of the pass.”
“The first two murders—Kelly Farrow and Christy O’Brien—happened within hours of each other,” Travis said.
“I think he gets a charge out of getting away with not one, but two killings,” Emily said.
“The profiler from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation said he’s feeling more pressure from us now that we know his identity,” Travis said. “She believes he’ll continue to kill, as a way to relieve the pressure.”
Emily nodded. “Yes, that sounds right. And he wants to prove that he can still get away with the crimes—that you’ll never catch him.”
“He’s by himself,” Travis said. “Wherever he’s hiding can’t be that comfortable. We’re doing everything we can to alert other people that he’s dangerous, so he can’t move safely around town, or rely on others for help. He’s going to run out of victims he can fool also. We’re going to run him to ground.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Emily said. “Maybe I can help you find him.”
“Have you thought of someplace he might be hiding?”
“No. But he knows me. Maybe I could lure him out of hiding by agreeing to meet him.”
“No.” Travis didn’t look at her, but the muscles along his jaw tightened.
“I’m serious,” she said. Her brother wasn’t the only stubborn member of this family. “I’ve lost too many friends to this man. I’ll do whatever I can to stop him.” Alex was a killer, but she knew him. Maybe she could get to him when no one else could.
Chapter Eleven
“Over my dead body.”
So what if it was a cliché? Brodie thought, as soon as he had uttered those words. Travis’s announcement that Emily wanted to try to lure Alex to her had prompted a visceral reaction that went beyond coherent speech. The thought of her anywhere near that monster made
his blood freeze.
“I already told her the idea was out of the question,” Travis said.
“It’s a stupid idea.” Brodie dropped into the chair across from Travis’s desk at the sheriff’s department, not sure if his legs were steady enough yet for him to remain standing. “What makes her think he’d come anywhere near her?”
“She fits the profile of the other women he’s murdered,” Travis said. “Alex knows her. And she’s my sister. He’s made it clear he enjoys getting back at me and my department—it’s why he went after Jamie.”
“How can you even look at this logically?” Brodie groused. “She’s your sister.”
“I made it clear it wasn’t going to happen,” he said.
“We don’t even know where he is,” Brodie said. “What was she going to do—put an ad in the paper asking him to meet her? He’d see that as a trap right away.”
“Maybe. Or maybe he’d be too tempted by the chance to get at her.”
Brodie glared at the sheriff. “You’ve actually considered this, haven’t you? You’ve run all the possibilities through your head.”
Travis shifted in his chair. “It’s not going to happen,” he said again. “But if anyone is to blame for her coming up with the idea, it’s you.”
“Me?”
“You’re the one who asked her to help with the case. You gave her the idea that she knows Alex better than anyone, and that her insight could help.”
“Insight. Her thoughts. I never meant for her to put her life on the line—or anything close to it.”
“I know. And I know she really wants to help. But this isn’t the way to do it.”
Brodie slid down farther in his chair. “I think this case is getting to us all.”
Deputy Dwight Prentice stopped in the doorway to the office. “Abel Crutchfield just called in with a tip we ought to check out,” he said.
“Who is Abel Crutchfield?” Brodie asked.
“He’s a retired guy, spends a lot of time ice fishing in the area,” Travis said. “He was the first one to report a blonde woman hanging around near where Michaela Underwood was murdered. That woman turned out to be Tim Dawson in disguise.”
Brodie nodded and sat up straighter. “What’s the tip?”
“He says he saw smoke coming from some caves over by Eagle Creek,” Dwight said. “Like someone was camping up there. He figured we might want to check it out.”
“Take Brodie over there with you and have a look,” Travis said. “But call for backup if it looks like anyone is up there.”
“Right.” Brodie rose. “Much as I’d like to get hold of this guy, better not try to do it by ourselves.”
“We should be able to get a good look from across the way,” Dwight said. “Enough to see if it’s worth going in. Maybe Abel just saw snow blowing off trees and mistook it for smoke.”
The drive to Eagle Creek took twenty minutes, most of it on narrow, snow-packed forest service roads. “It doesn’t look as if anyone lives out here,” Brodie said, staring out at the landscape of snowy woodland.
“They don’t,” Dwight said. “This is all forest service land. A few snowmobilers or cross-country skiers use the road, and ice fishermen like Abel.”
“Sounds like a good place for someone to hide out if he didn’t want to be seen,” Brodie said.
The caves themselves sat above the river in a limestone formation, centuries of dripping water having hollowed out the rock to form the openings. “Most of these caves are pretty shallow,” Dwight said as he led the way through the snow along the riverbank. “There are only a couple that are deep enough to provide any real shelter.”
“Deep enough to live in?” Brodie asked.
“Maybe. It wouldn’t be very comfortable. You’d have to have a fire to keep from freezing to death, and there would be a lot of smoke and dampness. Not to mention bats, bugs and wild animals.”
“It doesn’t sound like Alex Woodruff’s kind of place,” Brodie said. “He struck me as someone who likes his creature comforts.”
“Yeah, but he’s desperate now. He can’t be as choosy.”
They halted on a bench of land across the river from the largest opening. Dwight dug out a pair of binoculars and trained them on the cave. “The snow around the opening is churned up,” he said. “Someone—or something—has been going in and out of there.” He shifted the binoculars. “And there’s a definite path leading up there.”
Brodie sniffed the air. “I can smell smoke—like a campfire.”
Dwight handed him the binoculars. “There’s no smoke coming from there right now.”
Brodie focused the glasses on the cave opening. It was impossible to see into the dark space, but there was definitely no movement at the entrance. He returned the binoculars to Dwight. “What do you think we should do now?”
“I’d like to get a little closer before we call in the cavalry,” Dwight said. “We can approach from below and anyone inside wouldn’t be able to see us until we were almost on him.”
“Sounds good to me.”
It took twenty minutes to retrace their steps along the river, negotiating over icy rock and snow-covered deadfall. They had to walk farther downstream to find a place to cross—a bridge of felled trees that required stepping carefully and balancing like a tightrope walker. But when they reached the other side, they found the worn path through the snow that they had glimpsed from the other side.
Weapons drawn, they moved cautiously up the path. The rushing water tumbling over rocks and downed trees drowned out all other sound. Dwight took the lead, while Brodie covered him, staying several yards behind. They reached a series of rock steps that led up to the cave and halted. “Let me go up first, while you stay down here,” Dwight whispered. “I should be able to get right up on the entrance without being seen. You come up after me and we’ll flank the entrance and demand whoever is in there to come out. If we don’t get an answer, we’ll shine a light in, maybe try to draw his fire.”
Brodie agreed and Dwight started up, keeping close to the cliff side, placing each step carefully, the rush of the water below drowning out his approach. When he was safely up the steps and stationed on the left side of the cave entrance, he motioned for Brodie to follow.
Brodie moved up more quickly and took up a position on the opposite side of the cave entrance. “Is anyone in there?” Dwight called.
The words bounced off the canyon walls and echoed back at them, but no sound came from the cave.
“This is the Rayford County Sheriff’s Department!” Dwight called. “You need to come out with your hands up!”
No answer or movement. Dwight unsnapped his flashlight from his utility belt and trained the powerful beam into the cave entrance. A rock fire ring sat about two feet inside, full of dark ash and a couple of pieces of charred wood. Brodie stooped, picked up a rock and tossed it inside the cave. It bounced off the stone floor and rolled toward the back, then all was silent again.
Dwight’s eyes met Brodie’s. He jerked his head toward the cave and indicated he was going in. Brodie nodded. Instincts could be wrong, but it didn’t feel to him as if anyone was in there. Dwight swung the flashlight in ahead of him, then entered the cave, staying close to the wall. He had to duck to enter. Weapon ready, Brodie watched him disappear from sight.
“Come on in!” Dwight called a few seconds later. “There’s no one in here.”
Brodie unhooked his own flashlight and followed Dwight into the cave. He swept the light over the mostly empty space, coming to rest on a pile of garbage in the corner—tin cans, beer bottles and food wrappers. He moved closer to the fire. “Someone was here for a while,” he said. “And not that long ago.”
“The ashes in the firepit are still warm.” Dwight crouched beside the rock ring and held his hand over the charred wood.
Brodie holstered his gun and played
the flashlight over the scuffed dirt on the floor of the cave. The space was maybe ten feet deep and eight feet wide, tall enough to stand up in, but barely, with a ceiling of smoke-blackened rock and a dirt floor. It smelled of smoke, stale food and animal droppings. “Not exactly the Ritz,” he said.
“No one would be camping here in the middle of winter unless he had to,” Dwight said. “It has to be Alex.”
Brodie trained his light on the garbage pile again. “He’s buying food somewhere.” He nudged a beer bottle with his toe. “Lots of craft beer, chips and canned pasta.”
“That sounds like a college guy’s diet,” Dwight said.
“If he’s shopping, someone in Eagle Mountain must have seen him,” Brodie said. “Why haven’t they reported him to the sheriff’s department?”
“He could be breaking into summer cabins,” Dwight said. “Or shopping at the grocery store wearing a disguise.”
“If he was here this morning, it doesn’t look as if he intends to return,” Brodie said. “There’s no sleeping bag, no stash of food—not even any firewood.”
“We’ll watch the place for a couple of days, see if he comes back,” Dwight said. “But I agree—it looks like he’s cleared out. Maybe he saw Abel looking up this way and decided to leave.”
“There’s not much here, but we’d better look through it, see if we can find anything significant,” Brodie said. He smoothed on a pair of gloves and began sifting through the garbage, while Dwight examined the firepit. He combed through half a dozen beer bottles, two empty ravioli cans, several candy bar wrappers and two chip bags, but found nothing that told them where Alex might be now. They took photographs and bagged everything as evidence. They might be able to get DNA off the beer bottles that would prove Alex was the person who had hidden in this cave, but Brodie didn’t see how that would be useful in their case against him.