Hard Evidence

by Roxanne Rustand

Michael and one of his deputies had arrived less than an hour after she called 911—amazing, considering the twenty-mile distance from town on difficult mountain roads.

  After telling them about the trespasser she’d seen in the woods and the strange, faded stains on Cabin Ten’s floor, she’d led them to the place where she’d seen the skull, then went back to the lodge to stay out of their way.

  They spent several hours out in the rain before the deputy drove away and Michael came back to the lodge.

  Now he sat at the dining room table with Janna and Claire, his hand poised over a clipboard, the soft light of the rustic antler chandelier highlighting the angles and planes of his rugged face and deep, rain-damp waves in his dark hair.

  If he was frustrated by Claire’s imperious attitude, he certainly masked it well.

  “So this place—the lodge and the cabins—have been empty for…”

  Claire gave him a look of utter disdain. “The lodge, at least fifteen years. The cabins, much longer.”

  “The buildings were kept locked?”

  “Of course.”

  “No one was allowed to use them? Family members? Friends?”

  She took a long, slow sip of coffee. “The water and electricity were turned off, of course. I don’t remember anyone…” Her brow furrowed. “Maybe a ranch hand used a cabin from time to time, while up here moving or doctoring cattle or riding fence. It’s a long ways from the home place.”

  Michael’s fingers tensed almost imperceptibly on his pen. “Would you still have records on your employees over the past, say, twenty years?”

  Claire snorted. “There weren’t that many.” She lifted her gaze to the window beyond his shoulder, as if mentally cataloging each one. “Not more than a dozen. I always kept detailed records on everything pertaining to the ranch, but those files are at the ranch office, not here.”

  He tilted his head slightly, studying her. “I don’t suppose you did prehire background checks.”

  That earned a sharp, derisive laugh. “In these parts, a few phone calls are enough.”

  Janna nodded. “Word travels fast in a small town, and the ranchers know each other well. If someone was fired for good reason, he probably wouldn’t find another job in the entire county.” Janna frowned as Michael’s words registered. “You said twenty years. Are you guessing the bones have been here that long?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “I don’t even want to hazard a guess, but we’ll probably have some preliminary answers for you once the state crime lab people get out here.”

  “The state?” Claire’s chin jerked up. “You can’t deal with this on your own?”

  “We need to call in some experts. Our county can’t afford its own forensics specialists or a crime lab.”

  “They can’t go traipsing all over, digging and ruining my land,” Claire snapped.

  “No, it’s nothing like that,” Michael said with a reassuring smile. “The director will send out a team—just a single van—and they’ll process the scene in a single day. Possibly tomorrow or Thursday.” He shifted his attention to Janna. “You’ll barely know they’re here, unless they need to ask you some questions.”

  Even from across the table, Janna could see a vein pulsing at her mother’s temple, a sure sign of her rising anger. Anger that had always been quick to ignite, but now—coupled with the doctor’s strong suspicions about early Alzheimer’s—it was far more unpredictable and intense.

  Janna lifted a brow and pointedly slid a glance toward Claire, then met Michael’s gaze, hoping he’d catch her silent message. “Perhaps you could tell us a little more about what these investigators will be doing, Michael. Just so there aren’t any…surprises?”

  A corner of his mouth lifted. “The team will take measurements and create diagrams of the scene, then they’ll carefully excavate the burial site, looking for evidence. They’ll probably take a lot of video footage and dozens—even hundreds—of digital photos to show the position of anything they find.”

  “And the remains?”

  “Those will go back to the crime lab, along with anything else that can be analyzed. Maybe forensics can help identify the deceased and figure out the cause of death.”

  Claire drummed her fingers on the table. “And how long does that take?”

  “Quite a while, I’m afraid. The lab has to prioritize its workload based on which cases are scheduled for court, and whether or not immediate suspects are being held. A cold case like this one will take a backseat.”

  “Weeks?”

  “Probably many months. Worst-case scenario, maybe a year or more. Real life isn’t exactly like what you see on TV.”

  Janna worried at her lower lip. “But we could soon face a flood of reporters.”

  “The local paper, if they get wind of what’s going on,” he admitted. “Wider coverage, if we actually bring someone to trial. But that’s jumping the gun, given how long those bones have been here. And supposing that we eventually do identify the killer, he might even be deceased himself by now.”

  “We’ll cooperate with you, of course.” Janna eyed her mother’s rigid jaw. “Won’t we?”

  Claire’s mouth thinned, though she gave a faint nod.

  Michael dropped his pen on the table and leaned back in his chair, the picture of affable charm. “So, what do you think?” His casual air belied the sharp intensity in his eyes. “Anyone from the past come to mind—any difficult employees?”

  “If they were difficult, they packed their bags. I had no time for boozers or fighters. Not with three girls to raise and a ranch to run.”

  Michael toyed idly with the handle of his coffee cup. “Remember any local troublemakers over the years? Neighbors…trespassers…any suspicious activity in the area?”

  “No.” Claire gathered her cup and saucer and stood. “So are we done here?”

  Michael rose, as well, and nodded. “If there’s anything else, I can always check with you later. In the meantime, Janna can probably answer some of my questions.”

  Claire’s dismissive gaze flicked toward Janna. “She deserted this ranch a long time ago, so I doubt that very much.”

  “What about your other daughters?”

  “Leigh’s doing a vet school residency but she’s moving back in the fall,” Claire snapped. “You can find Tessa working down at the ranch or up in the mountains. I never know where.”

  Michael waited until Claire left the room, then settled back in his chair. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to open any old wounds.”

  “It’s okay. My mother and I have a rather long and difficult history.” Janna hesitated, weighing her mother’s rights to privacy against the added security of having another adult aware of the situation. “Since you’re staying at the lodge, you should probably know that her doctor suspects early Alzheimer’s.”

  “That’s hard for both of you, I’m sure,” he said, his voice warm with sympathy.

  “One reason my daughter and I came back to Wyoming was to help my sisters care for her, but she isn’t very happy about it. She’s a proud and independent woman.” Janna studied the remaining coffee in her cup. “About your questions…my sisters and I were in our early teens during the time frame you mentioned. I don’t recall anything unusual.”

  “No exciting local headlines? Scandals or rumors about missing people?”

  “If there had been, this town would’ve been abuzz with curiosity.” Janna shrugged. “The hottest gossip of the day was the affair between the postmistress and the owner of a tavern in the next town. They carried on for years and probably never realized that the whole town knew.”

  “And your mother’s ranch hands?”

  Janna smiled wryly. “As soon as we girls could ride, we were pretty much it. I was the bookworm and never as good a cowgirl as Tessa and Leigh, but we all racked up a lot of wet saddle blankets over the years. Mom usually had just one, maybe two men working for her. Most came and went pretty fast, though, because she wasn’t easy to work for. I can see about finding
their files.”

  “It’s possible the body was simply dumped here—maybe even hauled from a great distance in an effort to hide it well. But I want to check every local angle.” Michael dropped his pen into the pocket of his shirt. “In the meantime, be sure to remind everyone to stay away from the area cordoned off with yellow caution tape. Tomorrow, too.”

  “No problem.” She shivered. “I just want this to be over as soon as possible.”

  Ian and Rylie had been ordered to stay inside the lodge, but with each new vehicle that pulled in the next morning, Ian grew more impatient.

  “I wouldn’t be in the way,” he growled as he watched two uniformed women step out of a Wyoming State patrol car. “Only cool thing all summer, and I’m supposed to stay inside like some kindergartner.”

  “It’s a crime scene,” Janna repeated. “I’m sure your dad will tell you all he can later on.”

  Rylie hugged herself, her eyes widening. “What if the murderer is still here?”

  “He probably is,” Ian retorted with obvious relish. “He might even be a serial killer, and—”

  “Ian!” Janna gave him a look that could have stopped a freight train, but he just shrugged and looked unrepentant.

  “Stands to reason. Abandoned resort…an isolated place. A guy could ditch a lot of bodies out here, and no one would ever know.”

  “That’s enough.” She pointed toward the stairs. “If you’re bent on scaring a little girl, then you need to spend some time by yourself.”

  He grumbled something under his breath, but gave up his post at the windows and flopped onto one of the leather couches by the fireplace.

  Rylie burrowed into Janna’s arms. “Maybe Ian’s right. That man could be outside right now, waiting for us.”

  “You’re safe, sweetheart.” Janna lifted her gaze to the fireplace, where she could just barely see the top of Ian’s head. “And if anyone tries to tell you differently, you come to me. Okay?”

  But even as she reassured her daughter, Janna had her own doubts. There’d definitely been a trespasser on the property, two days in a row. And even from a distance the guy had seemed furtive. Nervous.

  Maybe he was just a random hiker, who had no idea of the mystery unfolding at the resort. Maybe there’d even been a different person, the second time. But what if he was after something here—or even knew something about the person who’d gone missing long ago?

  The coincidental timing made it seem possible, and that thought sent a chill down Janna’s spine.

  The early mist had burned away by midmorning, and by noon the sun blazed overhead. It was early evening before the crime lab team drove away and Michael came back to the lodge, his uniform mud stained and his face weary.

  Janna met him on the porch of the lodge with an ice-cold glass of tea. “You look exhausted,” she said.

  He gratefully accepted the glass and downed the icy liquid in several long swallows. “The others worked straight through because they’ve got another crime scene tomorrow. So I did, too.”

  “Any clues yet?”

  “Nothing definitive.” He glanced down at the damp, newly bathed dog at his feet. “The spring runoff was especially high this year, which is probably why Maggie was able to find most of the remains. If not for her, they might never have been found.”

  Janna glanced back toward the house and lowered her voice. “Most?”

  “It’s hard to say when the burial site was first disturbed. If it was early on, coyotes or wolves might’ve made off with some of it. We did a thorough search and the crime lab even brought in a dog, but we didn’t find a complete skeleton.”

  Feeling faint, Janna backed up to an Adirondack chair and sat down. “Was there enough to help you find out who it was?”

  “We recovered part of the skull—enough for dental records, so we’ve got a start. And…” He hesitated, clearly keeping some of the details to himself. “We found items in the vicinity that may help narrow down the approximate year of death.”

  “What happens next?”

  “I’ll search old records for missing persons. Newspaper archives.”

  “What about DNA?”

  Michael rubbed his jaw. “These days, DNA samples would be collected from a missing person’s home and kept indefinitely to help with identification. Toothbrushes. Strands of hair. But at the probable time of this death, that technology was still fairly new and there wasn’t a national database. Still, we can make a positive ID if there are any records on file—more likely, if the victim had a criminal past.”

  “Can you tell us what you find out?”

  Michael shook the ice in his glass, clearly debating what to say as he surveyed the mountain peaks. “In time.”

  “Can you at least tell me if it was a murder?”

  “Obviously, this was a burial, not just someone who keeled over in the woods.” He looked over his shoulder at her, his eyes pensive. “But was it premeditated? The result of a fight or a moment of anger? Maybe the poor guy took a hard fall…or committed suicide and his buddy panicked, afraid he’d be blamed. We’ll know more when we get the report back from the DCI.”

  “But you did see a probable cause of death.”

  Michael turned and leaned against the porch rail, his thumbs hooked in his front jeans pockets. “Possible, not definite. But I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high, because a lot of cold cases are never solved. If the bones belong to some drifter, perhaps a missing persons report was never filed.”

  She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, imagining what might have happened on this property—the terror and pain. Had there been a desperate fight for survival, or had the victim been caught unaware? “Would you have just a ballpark estimate on when it happened? I keep wondering if his killer could still be on the loose around here.”

  Michael hesitated. “From items found at the site, we know it didn’t happen before 1990, but the DCI will have more definitive answers later.”

  Janna’s breath caught in her throat as she thought back. She’d been sixteen that year. Throughout high school she and her sisters had ridden in this area often, to move cattle to summer range or for impromptu picnics with the Langley girls from the neighboring ranch. If she and the others had come by at the wrong moment and had seen too much…

  “…but don’t talk about anything you’ve seen or heard regarding this case—not even with your family,” Michael continued. “No sense in letting word spread and alerting any possible suspects, right?”

  She pulled her thoughts back to the present. “No. Of course not. Did you find any signs of the man I saw on our property?”

  Michael shook his head. “The rain probably helped cover his tracks. You couldn’t see any identifying features?”

  “Not even what he was wearing, really—given the distance. It just looked like he was wearing a dark hooded jacket of some kind.” Janna pensively gnawed at her lower lip. “But maybe he was a hiker who happened to be in the area. Just a coincidence, maybe.”

  “Perhaps.”

  But a coincidence didn’t seem likely, and given the look in Michael’s eyes, he felt the same way. “So what’s next?”

  “We’ll eventually get a DCI report on the victim, and they’ll also be testing the stains on the floor in Cabin Ten for DNA. In the meantime, I’ll be looking into old missing-persons reports and unsolved crimes in the area.” He glanced at his watch. “Speaking of that, I’d better get going. The dispatcher called me a few minutes ago about some break-ins on the other side of the county. Will you all be okay?”

  “Actually…I need to go to town for my mother’s prescriptions, and I have an appointment with my lawyer. Is it okay if we leave?”

  “Everything’s under control here. If we have any further questions, they can wait until you get back.” He started for the door, then hesitated. “Just be careful, okay? If the killer is still in the area, he isn’t going to be happy about this discovery.”

  All the way to town, Janna was lost in thought
. Until now, she’d seen only the “civilian” side of Michael.

  The moment he arrived after her 911 call, he’d seemed like a different man. His professional persona with his officers and their obvious respect for him had instantly piqued her curiosity. What could have brought a man like him to this small, backwater town, when he was obviously so adept at his career?

  Janna pulled into a parking space in front of the only drugstore in town. She rested her head briefly on the top curve of the steering wheel, the enormity and horror of the day’s events settling over her like a damp, suffocating blanket.

  Before moving here, she’d expected hard work and an ongoing struggle to bring the lodge back to life. She hadn’t expected a death, investigators and possible danger.

  As she stepped out of the truck, she felt the hairs at the back of her neck prickle. She stopped. Looked around.

  A middle-aged cowboy leaned against the door of a battered pickup just a dozen feet away. The narrowed look he gave her was laced with pure venom. “Like living alone, do you?” His voice was low, deadly. “Just you and that daughter of yours, and the old lady?”

  He was a complete stranger, but the threat in his voice was unmistakable. She stared back at him in disbelief. “Wh-who are you?”

  His laugh was sharp, without humor. “Don’t matter none, now does it? Especially not to a high-and-mighty McAllister.”

  She bit back a sharp reply. High and mighty? If only he knew. Forcing herself to ignore him, she turned away to walk into the drugstore, though she felt his glare burning into her back.

  When she glanced over her shoulder, he was gone.

  FOUR

  “I don’t see anyone out there now.” Wade Hollister tipped the blinds down with a forefinger and peered out the front window of his law office, his lips pursed. “What did the guy look like?”

  “Middle-aged, probably. An old, silver-belly gray western hat. Leathery skin. Maybe a little over six feet.” Janna shifted uncomfortably on the wooden chair, thankful that she’d dropped Rylie and Claire off for a visit at her sister Tessa’s place before coming into town. “He didn’t threaten me, exactly, but he sure seemed to relish the fact that my mother, daughter and I are living out at the lodge on our own.”