by Blake Pierce
It was like a spell was broken. The Sergeant suddenly felt a flash of embarrassment. He cleared his throat and began to push away from the table.
“I’m sorry. The food was great. But honestly, I should be going. There’s more territory to cover. Keep an eye out. And, just be safe. What you have here is very nice. Not everyone gets to find such joy in life.”
The Kloses bid him farewell, standing in the doorway as he turned to leave.
It was only after he stepped past the final patch of the garden that the door shut behind him. The Sergeant turned away from the cabin and stalked back up the trail, along the forest. As he moved, he glanced through a portion of the garden. He spotted a small, circular stone structure. The well, it looked like. The husband had said it wasn’t functional.
The Sergeant paused, realizing he hadn’t asked for the husband’s name.
He supposed that was just another small freedom they had. No need for names, no need for society, no need for more rules and structures and stress. Perhaps he should look into buying a piece of land. Maybe even nearby?
He chuckled to himself and shook his head. Stupid idea. He moved past the well, along the trail of small saplings, and back out toward the main portion of forest to continue his search.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Morning brought a brief respite from the chill wind. Adele once more stood on the highway near the crime scene. The traffic cones had been moved, and the caution tape torn down. Every few minutes, a couple of cars would zip by, one way or the other, a blur of motion against the backdrop of green and brown. The snow from the previous day had melted. The ground was still frost, but a few beams of sunlight, tolerated by the wisps of clouds, warmed the area, enough so Adele’s breath didn’t fog where she stood by the trees.
She watched as the groups of volunteers placed their orange jumpers back on. She watched as whistles were handed out once more, and dogs strained at their leashes, excited to move through the woods again.
She listened to the coordinator on her black microphone, her voice blaring from the car, calling out, “Leave any personal items you’re worried about carrying in your cars. Lock the doors. Make sure not to leave the group. Yesterday, we had one of our own disappear. People are still looking, and we’re going to help. The main goal is the same. If you see anything suspicious, anything out of the ordinary, blow your whistles. Officers will come. Helicopters will be back this afternoon, and we will have lunch for those who plan on staying through until evening.”
A few more instructions buzzed out in the air, echoing from the crackling speakers of the squad car.
For her part, Adele moved toward the nearest group of orange-vest-wearing searchers. She approached one of them, and said, “Excuse me, hello.”
An older man, perhaps in his sixties, turned and gave Adele a long look. He had a straight posture and clean-cut hair. She immediately pegged him as someone who served either in the force or military.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said. “I think I recognize you; were you with my father’s search group last night? Sergeant Sharp.”
The man examined Adele and said, “Joseph?”
Adele blinked. “Joseph Sharp; yes. You know him?”
The man looked at her curiously. “Yes, he pointed you out when you arrived. Good man. Stayed long after the rest of us left.”
Adele nodded. “Yes, he did. Do you have any idea where he is? I haven’t seen him this morning.”
The straight-postured man adjusted his orange vest, and Adele noticed the whistle was now dangling from his neck.
“Called in. He searched all night and only arrived back home an hour ago.”
Adele did a brief calculation. Her father’s house was more than an hour’s drive from here. Which meant if he searched all night, and only arrived an hour ago, he’d stayed up until at least six AM in the woods and the cold. She gave a sort of sympathetic shiver.
“He’s sleeping now,” said the military-looking man. “Best I figure, he will be back here this evening. Joseph isn’t the sort to give up on a hunt.”
Adele pressed her lips together. “No, I suppose not. Well, okay, thank you.”
“My pleasure. Auf Wiedersehen.”
Adele turned, massaging the back of her head. As she scanned the line of volunteers gathered along the trail in front of the forest, she spotted a hand waving. It took a bit for her eyes to flick along the search party, and then she realized it was John, gesturing rapidly at her, his hand rotating in the air.
“What in the world,” she muttered. Adele hurried forward, not quite jogging, but moving with long, rapid steps.
She reached John where he stood beneath the shelter of a prickling fir. Two young searchers, college age, were both looking nervously at him, and when Adele arrived, a flash of relief crossed their expressions.
Adele winced. “What’s up?”
John pointed at one of the searchers, a young man with a wispy goatee.
“Tell her,” John said, in fragmented English. “Tell her what you are talking to him about.”
The second guy was looking every which way except in John’s direction. Clearly, the tall, scarred agent had unnerved him.
To Adele’s surprise, the wispy-goateed fellow spoke in English. An American accent. “Yeah, well, I was just saying to my friend,” he spoke, hesitantly, fidgeting as he did, “yesterday, in the other group I was with, a very angry man tried to shoot us.”
Adele blinked and glanced at John. He had a grin like he had won the lottery, and flashed a thumbs up, wagging his head. “Exactly,” he said. He gave a little shooing motion toward the wispy-goateed fellow. “Tell her more. More.”
The man took a cautionary step away from John, put off by his energy, and said, “Not really much more. He didn’t actually shoot us. Well, I guess he didn’t actually try. He threatened to. He said we were trespassing on his property. There were four of us.”
“Were you with them?” Adele said, nodding toward the second one, who had maintained his silence up to this point.
The quiet one spoke at last with a German accent, but managed English all the same. “Yes. Two others with us were friends from school. After…” He cleared his throat and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he shot an uneasy look toward the trees. “After that fellow disappeared… Diedrich… We wanted to stick closer together. But we must have not paid attention—because we accidentally wandered onto this man’s property. He threatened us, just like he’s saying.”
Adele returned her attention to the goatee. “So this fellow threatened you for trespassing. He had a gun?”
The young man wagged his head up and down.
“You remember where it was?”
He nodded again. “We were in the east grid, but heading toward Hinterzarten. We could see Lake Titsee,” he said. “We had already reached the edge of the designated line of search patterns. We went a little bit further, and that’s when I think we accidentally walked onto private property near the Ravenna Gorge. He seemed to think we were backpackers. He just got furious, I don’t even know. We tried to explain, but he was angry. My German is not the best. The others I was with were too frightened to try to say anything.”
“Having a gun waved at you can do that,” said Adele. “Thank you for your time.”
“He did shoot in the air,” said the fellow, quickly. “Like he didn’t shoot at us, but he did shoot in the air. I think he was trying to scare us.”
John gave Adele a long, significant look. They thanked the searchers once more, then together, they turned, moving along the trail.
“Had breakfast yet?” said Adele.
“I’m fine,” said John. “Think we should check it out?”
“Yeah. Nothing better to do. Is that what you’re wearing?” She glanced at John, who had two sweaters on instead of a jacket. He’d pulled a similar fashion statement back in the Alps.
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. If the guy starts shooting again, though, make sure to get t
o cover, fast.”
***
“East quadrant, that’s what the guy said, right?”
Adele wasn’t bothering to speak quietly now. They’d been moving through the woods for nearly an hour, with nothing to show for it. They hadn’t stumbled upon a house or cabin, but every few hundred feet, they did find signs.
John’s footsteps crunched next to her, and his head was tilted back. He still adopted the posture of someone on the verge of action. Poised for an hour—Adele could barely fathom the concentration that required.
“Look, another one,” John said, tilting his eyebrows.
Adele followed his gaze, and her eyes landed on a metal sign nailed into a tree trunk.
“Says the same as the others,” she said. “No trespassing. And see that one over there?” She nodded toward the second, higher sign. “Private property”
John winced. “Well, maybe this is why the fellow thought they were backpackers. Everything in German. He should post some in French too.”
“Why?”
John shrugged. “A lot of international people come through these ways, yeah? They might not be able to read the signs. They probably wander onto this fellow’s property, giving him a conniption in the meantime.”
Adele nodded, strolling along next to her partner. Her hands dangled at her side. Vaguely, she thought of her father, wondering if he was still sleeping or if he had an itch to get back out there again. He’d been acting strange for weeks now. Was he still mad at her about Christmas? Was it something else? She could never really tell with him.
Troubled, as she strolled along, she also thought about the notebook he’d given her. Maybe it had something to do with that. Her lead had turned up cold. Someone had been switching notes. It still didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t the postman. He was dead. According to the serial killer Adele had caught back in France, her mother’s murderer was still alive.
“All right,” said John, “if this is private property, where the hell is this guy?”
As he spoke, his voice interceding with the rustling trees, Adele thought she heard movement. She frowned, spotting something slipping through the underbrush not far off.
She began to turn slowly, but then felt hands against her back, shoving hard.
“Get down!” John shouted.
A second later, she heard a blast of gunfire. A tree a few paces above Adele exploded with splinters. There was another bark of gunfire, and another tree, just a bit higher, lost a branch.
“DGSI!” Johnson shouted.
“Interpol!” Adele cried.
There was a hesitation, but then more gunfire. More splinters and dust. John growled, low from where he’d tackled Adele, knocking them behind a slow dip in the terrain.
He pointed at her, then made a gesture with his hands she couldn’t understand. He rolled his eyes and then mimed it out, pointing at her again, and then with a finger making a small semicircle, suggesting she should move around.
She frowned at him and shook her head. He pointed at her more insistently where they both lay low in the leaves. Adele could smell the mold, the moss. Her nose filled with the odor of dirt.
John was already moving to the right, still crouched low, his own weapon in his hand. He fired a couple of times in the air.
There was return fire. More splinters above. They were out of sight for now, behind the incline of terrain, but if the hunter started to circle, they would be like sitting ducks.
“Go,” John mouthed at her, his eyes alight, pulsing with excitement.
He moved quickly, every motion seeming a spring-loaded piston. He ducked behind a tree and then moved further away from Adele, still gesturing behind his back at her for her to move. He darted forward in a quiet crouch toward the edge of the tree line, then turned and fired off a couple shots of his own.
Adele heard an indiscernible shout of anger. And then another gunshot. For her part, she kept low, but then, following John’s pantomimes from before, she circled, moving quickly around the forest, allowing the trees and the low terrain to disguise her movements.
John, spotting her, fired again, most likely to keep the hunter distracted.
She picked up speed, her own weapon clutched in her right hand. She moved through the trees, the detritus and twigs crackling beneath her.
John fired again, this time most likely to simply distract the hunter from the sounds Adele was making. She still hadn’t spotted the hunter. She circled, heard another shot. This one much closer. Not John.
She frowned, adrenaline pulsing through her, her body a motor. She hurried along and then came to the edge of an outcrop. Rocky terrain, with a small pool at the base, circled beneath three oversized trees. More signs were stapled to these trees. More no trespassing. One of them saying, “We don’t call the cops.” With a silhouette of a rifle under the German words.
There, on the top of the small hill, she spotted a figure kneeling, a rifle in his hands. The figure was reloading the rifle, sliding bullets in, and then readjusting his aim. He sighted down his weapon, one eye open, tucking his tongue inside his cheek. Adele spotted movement in the direction he was aiming.
She holstered her weapon, sprinted forward, and then, just as he fired, she tackled him from behind, knocking them both to the ground. She regained her feet first, rolling off the dust and dirt and springing up.
She kicked his gun and it clattered away. Her own weapon leapt back into her hands, and she pointed her pistol at the hunter’s face.
“Don’t move!” she shouted. “John?” she called out to the air. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” John replied. “Did you get him?”
“Yeah, help me cuff him.”
The hunter stared up at her, angry, wide-eyed. He muttered a few choice insults, but Adele rotated him onto his stomach, her weapon still pointing down. Then she reached behind his back, and, with the sound of thumping footsteps, John joined her to help cuff the man.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“You’re the property owner?” Adele said, then pursed her lips. She stared at the hunter, her eyebrows bunched in a scowl.
They were now back at the outpost for the search party. Two other police officers were in close vicinity and had been briefed on the events. They had permitted Adele to stow the suspect in the back of one of their SUVs.
For now, John leaned against the open door, one arm draped over the window frame. Adele peered into the back seat where the property owner was handcuffed. His weapon had already been confiscated and given to one of the other officers.
The property owner was glaring at the front of the windshield, every so often shooting an angry look toward Adele. He had a bruise forming nicely on his cheek, and scrape marks along the visible portions of his hands.
“You’re under arrest for firing on federals,” said Adele. “That’s enough trouble as it is. I’d advise you cooperate. Were you also firing at a search party yesterday?”
The property owner grunted, and said, “Like I told you, it’s private property. There were signs. I didn’t know who you were.”
Adele shook her head. “We called out our departments,” she said. “You kept firing.”
The man was average size and average weight. He had exaggerated features, with an oversized nose and a wobbly chin. He looked, to Adele, a bit like a librarian, with his glasses perched low on his nose.
The glare he kept fixing on her, though, reminded her more of a wolf.
“All right, well,” said Adele, glancing at her phone, where she’d pulled up the man’s address. “Again, Mr. Gunderson, I do have verification the property was yours.”
She scanned her phone again, and found a couple of complaints from backpackers that had been filed. But nothing had been followed up on. Mr. Gunderson didn’t have a record.
“Trespassing is a crime,” he said. “I’m the victim here.”
Adele sighed, placing a hand on the cold steel of the frame around the squad car. She glanced toward John, who raised an eyebrow
at her. She looked back at Mr. Gunderson. “Look, the orange vests you fired on, they were part of a search party.”
“Like I said, I didn’t know. I’m used to backpackers and trespassers using my property at their whim. There are signs. If they ignore them, there’s consequences.”
“Yes, and if you shoot federal officers there are consequences. Perhaps all of us could do with a little bit more patience. That aside, I need to know where you were this last summer. Were you on the property?”
He stared at her, an eyebrow raised. He fidgeted a bit in the back of the squad car, rotating, his handcuffs rattling. “Why does that matter?”
“You didn’t shoot at anyone else this summer?”
He stared. “Is this a murder investigation? It is, isn’t it?”
“No, actually, not yet at least. I just need to know where you were this last summer.”
“As it is, I actually wasn’t here. This is my year-round property, but during the summers I have a place in Italy.”
Adele stared. “Italy?”
Even John seem to understand this word in German, and glanced at Adele again.
“Yes, I wasn’t here. In fact, for most of the summer I was visiting different sommeliers on a wine tour. There are nearly two hundred people who can vouch for me. I can give you ten names right now.”
As he spoke, his eyes narrowed in vicious delight, as if he could tell his words were having an impact.
Adele clicked her tongue. “All right. Ten names. You can give them to that officer over there. Have a good day.”
The man protested as Adele turned in disgust, gesturing at John. The man continued to call after her, but she ignored him, still remembering the feeling of fear, pressed in the dirt and dust with hot splinters of wood raining down on the back of her neck.
She instructed the nearest officer to collect the information Mr. Gunderson was offering, before moving off toward a quieter portion of the trail, away from the squad cars and away from the vestiges of search parties—who’d arrived late—still preparing to leave.