by Blake Pierce
Timbrook took them down a side road that appeared to be used primarily for park vehicles. She then turned off about a mile further down and pointed the car down a smaller road, one that was just barely wide enough for two lanes of traffic—one coming, one going. There were rails to either side, protecting cars from some pretty serious drops over the edge.
“I think victim number two was killed after his climb. We went up to the top of Logan’s View and saw some odd marks right along the edge of the summit.”
“How high up is it?” Mackenzie asked.
“Four hundred and twenty feet. Which is why we’re driving straight to the top. Besides, I feel like that’s where the killer struck.”
Mackenzie watched the small mountain rises sweeping by, scatterings of trees here and there only partially blocking views. After about five minutes on the road, Timbrook skillfully taking a series of sharp turns, the land started to flatten out. The road gave way to a strip of hard-packed dirt that came to an end in a makeshift parking lot. There was a large square of gravel and dirt, bordered with concrete stops one each end indicating parking spots. Timbrook pulled in behind one of these concrete blocks and parked the car. They both stepped out into the gravel, Mackenzie once again taking in the view. It seemed that none of the immediate mountain ranges were very high. She supposed this made this area quite popular for climbers—both professional and aspiring.
And we know plenty about that, don’t we?
The thought came out of nowhere, like some rip current from the back of her mind. It made her pause for a moment, her head going swimmy as memories of the past tried to overcrowd her mind. A spike of fear stabbed at her heart for a moment and then it was gone.
“Agent White? You okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I assume we have a hike ahead of us?”
“Yes, but nothing huge. The hiking entrance to Logan’s View is only about half a mile that way,” she said, nodding toward the left. There was a very thin trail snaking its way between a few trees, leading into the scant growth. Most of the tree line was thin, making the views a little more spectacular.
They did very little talking as they covered the space between the parking lot and the end of the trail. It was an easy hike, but one that Mackenzie enjoyed. It sure beat the DC streets and the treadmill at the gym. She supposed this was the first force exercise she’d endured since giving birth to Kevin…and it felt exquisite.
The trail came to an end almost abruptly, spitting them out at what Mackenzie thought was a gorgeous view. More of the park was visible, unobstructed and stretched out far and wide. The point known as Logan’s View sat about fifty yards away from the tree line. The panoramic view was only blocked off by a single thin rail that looked as if it had been placed there only to fulfill some safety obligation and nothing more. Almost right away, at the edge of the tree line, there was a posted sign stating that all adults needed to keep their children close and that anyone below the age of ten was strongly suggested to stay behind the protective rail.
A stream of yellow crime scene tape had been tied to the sign’s post, streaming all the way across to the nearest tree, blocking most of the access to Logan’s View.
Mackenzie followed Timbrook under the tape and to the rail. When she saw Timbrook step easily over it, Mackenzie felt something in her stomach shift. Nervousness? Fear? She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that it took an extra bit of mental prodding to force herself to follow Timbrook over that damned rail.
Once she was on the other side, there was perhaps ten feet of perfectly flat ground. While Mackenzie did not enjoy the thought of peering down at the drop, she could not deny the stunning view. She looked away from the wide-open vista, to the ground directly in front of her. She noticed that Timbrook had stepped aside, letting her get a better look at the scene.
The ground was covered in a very thin layer of grass, but it was the hardpan that was dominant. She assumed that being this close to the edge of the mountain, it would be harder for grass roots to thrive and grow. Because of this, it was quite easy to see recent signs of some sort of conflict. There were scuffed footprints and, about two feet away from the edge, two droplets of something dark enough to probably be dried blood.
“Was there any climbing gear found at the site?” Mackenzie asked.
“No. We spoke to his family and his wife. They were both able to describe the sort of climbing gear he owned. But we never found it. Not up here and not down there. We assume the killer stole it.”
“Was it expensive gear?” Mackenzie asked. “Any chance he was killed for the gear?”
‘Highly unlikely. I think it was just basic gear. Standard stuff you could get at any sporting goods store. And not much of it. The climb up here to Logan’s View isn’t a very hard one from what I understand. Not that I could do it…”
Yeah, that makes two of us, Mackenzie thought. Faintly, she thought of a case about fifteen months ago. She remembered climbing up a water tower in pursuit of a killer and feeling some very old feelings coming back to her heart and mind—fears and worries from her past that she thought she had buried under so much mental rubble that they would never see the light of day again.
But here, at the top of the four-hundred-twenty-foot-high Logan’s View, she felt those fears rumbling. In her mind’s eye, she imagined a horror movie where a zombie’s hand was breaking through the topsoil under which it had been buried.
“I assume there aren’t any security cameras up here?” she asked.
“None. Once you get beyond the primary entrance, the information center and gift shop, there are no cameras.”
Mackenzie checked each of the clear scuff marks on the dirt. They were too old—as well dusted over and vague—to make out any sort of clear identifying marks. She looked at the two small dark drops two feet away from the edge and was confident that it was indeed dried blood.
That close to the edge, she could not help herself. She looked over. She moved slowly, craning her neck so the rest of her body could stay as far away from the edge as possible.
The drop took her breath away. For a moment, she felt dizzy. She wanted to pull herself back away from the view quickly but also did not want to alarm Timbrook. There was one frightening moment as she came back away from the edge, her heart in her throat, where Mackenzie thought she might vomit.
“How accessible is the area where the body was found?”
“Easier than this,” Timbrook said, looking out at the view in much the same way Mackenzie had.
“How soon can I get photos of the scene before the body was removed?”
“As soon as we get you to the station.”
As they headed back to the car, Mackenzie decided that she liked Timbrook quite a lot. She was driven and straight to the point. It was clear that she felt more strongly about a possible murder scenario than most of the others on her force. And the quicker she could get stable ground for such an approach, the smoother the case would be.
And Mackenzie wanted a smooth case. The faster she closed this, the sooner she would make it back to Kevin and Ellington. Thinking of them sent a little pang of sorrow through her heart as she got into the car and Timbrook carried her back down the side of the mountain.
CHAPTER NINE
The bottom of the mountain had revealed exactly what Mackenzie had been expecting: a whole lot of nothing. She and Timbrook spent less than five minutes looking over the area where Bryce Evans had fallen to his death. Without a body there to help spell out the story, the scene itself was essentially useless.
Still, it was unnerving to know that someone had fallen from such a height. Mackenzie looked up, craning her neck and imagining the fall. It sent little twirls of anxiousness through her stomach—not too dissimilar form the feeling of Kevin kicking her in the stomach before he’d been born.
“You seem discouraged,” Timbrook said on the way back to the station.
“No, not really,” Mackenzie said. “It’s always a little hard to play catch-up when all
I have to work with is cleaned crime scenes and photos and files.”
“Well, it wasn’t much help when the body was there. Everyone was so set on it being an accident. There may as well have not been a body there at all.”
Mackenzie wanted to comment on how she was accustomed to that. There were plenty of memories fresh in her mind about being undermined by those she worked for—especially following her trip back to Nebraska. But she said nothing, not wanting to add that level of toxicity to the situation.
When they arrived at the station, an officer met Timbrook at the door. He was an average middle-aged African-American man who looked to be about forty or so. He gave Mackenzie a little nod and smile as he updated Timbrook on several other local tidbits that did not include the two rock-climbing deaths. He was about to step away when Timbrook grabbed his arm and kept him still.
“Officer Waverly, I want you to meet Agent White,” Timbrook said. “Agent White, Waverly has been running most of the legwork on the rock-climbing cases. He’s also very well versed in the ins-and-outs of the park. He’s about the only other person in the place that thinks they are both hands-down murder cases.”
Waverly extended his hand, and Mackenzie shook it. “Have you formed an opinion yet?” he asked.
“I’m getting there,” she said. “Why don’t the two of you give me everything you know about the case?”
Timbrook was quite eager to do this very thing, quickly leading her to a room near the back of the station. There were two tables, one on either side of the room, already littered with a few files and folders.
Timbrook and Waverly were quiet as Mackenzie looked over the case files, speaking only when she asked them a question. Mackenzie spent a little extra time and attention on the photos from Bryce Evans’s fall site. Timbrook kept busy by looking at a map of the Grand Teton National Park pinned to the wall, while Waverly scrolled through a series of e-mails on his phone.
The photos were difficult to look at. They weren’t grisliest Mackenzie had ever seen, but they were right up there. As Timbrook had said, Evans had landed on his back. That had obviously caused some serious damage to his limbs and the back of his head. From the look of the corpse, his back and ribs had basically been pulverized upon impact. The blood flow from the back of the head was minor, but she suspected that was because most of it had run either beneath or directly around the body.
But it was the man’s forehead that she paid the most attention to. Just above the left eyebrow, there was a visible wound. She supposed he could have struck his head somewhere during the fall on the way down, but the wound looked too crisp for that. One of the photos showed the wound close up. It looked slightly like an indentation, the bottom of it rounded and the top not quite as clear. Whatever it was, it was impossible to miss; there was a divot in the man’s head that looked to be at least an inch or two deep.
“Any idea how deep this wound is?” Mackenzie asked.
“It’s in the coroner’s report,” Waverly said. “Nine centimeters at its deepest. There was a clear sign that his skull had been dented and fractured.”
“We keep coming back to that,” Timbrook said. “Any idea what it might be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe some sort of climbing equipment. I could possible the rounded end of some sort of carabiner hook or something.” But even as she said this, that didn’t seem to fit. She figured you’d have to get a hell of a lot of force behind your attachment to do that sort of damage with a carabiner.
Mackenzie finally slid the gruesome photos away and started looking over the police files. There wasn’t much more information than what she had already read on the flight into Jackson Hole, though a few hand-jotted notes gave her some more insight.
“Other than immediate family, who has been questioned?” she asked.
“We’ve questioned Bryce Evans’s wife and Mandy Yorke’s roommate,” Timbrook said. “From what we can see, there’s no connection between them. The only similarity we can find between them is a love of rock climbing.”
“You said Evans was married. What about Yorke? Any significant other in the picture?”
“Not according to the roommate,” Waverly said. “She said Mandy was sort of an introvert. Said she wasn’t the type to really date.”
Among the files, there was also an evidence bag. In it, Mackenzie found a newer model iPhone. She slid it out and looked to Timbrook and Waverly for authorization.
“You’re good,” Timbrook said. “It’s been looked over and permanently unlocked. Help yourself.”
Mackenzie did just that. She scrolled through about a month’s worth of e-mails and call history. The only thing of interest she found in the e-mails was a confirmation e-mail to a 5K race Mandy had signed up for. She then went into photos and found over seven hundred of them. Most of them were of scenic hiking trails, interspersed with some climbing shots and selfies. She could feel the eyes of Timbrook and Waverly on her as she looked, perhaps hoping she’d find something that they had overlooked.
After about five minutes, she did notice something. And it came from one of the last pictures that had been taken. She tapped back a few times, coming to the Photos screen that told when a picture was taken. The picture that had caught Mackenzie’s eye had been taken four days ago—the same day Mandy had died.
“Do either of you know if she went climbing solo that day?” she asked. “Did she have a partner?”
“Pretty sure it was a solo climb,” Timbrook said. “Her roommate said that it was very rare that Mandy climbed with anyone. Said she felt it slowed her down.” Timbrook’s face slowly washed over with interest as she leaned forward and asked: “Why?”
Mackenzie showed them the second to last picture that had been taken with Mandy Yorke’s phone. It was a selfie—or so it seemed it first. In the picture, Mandy Yorke was smiling brightly at the camera, her face perfectly centered with only a bit of the background showing. The background was the granite surface of some great wall behind her. But the angle was all wrong and the camera looked like it was a little too far away from her face to be a selfie.
Unless Mandy Yorke was double jointed and had freakishly long arms, there was no way she had taken the picture herself.
“Someone was with her,” Mackenzie said. “When she went out to climb four days ago, she had a partner.”
Both Timbrook and Waverly looked at the picture again. Waverly went so far as to tilt his head to the left, trying to see it from a different angle.
“Damn,” Timbrook said.
She took the phone and scrolled back a few pictures. It had been taken on the same day, during the morning if the soft light of the sun was any indicator. In the picture, a young man of about twenty to twenty-five years of age was posing, giving an exaggerated thumbs-up sign. He was dressed down, in a tank top and a pair of athletic shorts.
“Maybe him?” Timbrook said.
“Only one way to find out,” Mackenzie replied.
Before Mackenzie even began to give instruction, Timbrook and Waverly got to their feet, already headed for the door to get an ID on the man in the picture.
***
It took less than five minutes to get an ID on the man in the picture. One phone call to Mandy Yorke’s roommate was all it took, but Waverly followed up by texting the photo in question to the roommate to get final confirmation. Mackenzie had an address ten minutes after finding the picture and wasted no time heading out to locate the man from the picture—twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Morgan.
Morgan lived in Jackson Hole, just a fifteen-minute drive from the police station. Mackenzie invited Waverly to ride along. She felt there was no real danger in the visit, but was very aware that she had not been actively on a case in nearly eight months. And while Timbrook had secured a gun for her—a standard police-issued Glock—Mackenzie also had to admit that she was not exactly comfortable with the thought of handling it.
To Mackenzie, it still didn’t quite feel like she was legitimately on a case. She was dressed cas
ually and it was hard to find the urgency of it all. It wasn’t getting back into the mindset of an agent that was difficult; it was finding the groove of realizing that yes, she was indeed back to work now and the life she had known before Kevin was again front and center.
When she and Waverly arrived at Morgan’s apartment, Waverly parked, finishing up a conversation with Timbrook, who was back at the station compiling a list of local climbing instructors and enthusiasts. Malcolm Morgan lived in a quaint part of town, just far enough from the more scenic areas to seem almost typical. He lived in a second-floor apartment with one of the many mountain views scattered along several points within the city.
As it just so happened, Mackenzie spotted Morgan as she got out of the car. He was entering the building with two bags of groceries, absorbed in the task of not dropping the one in his right hand.
“I think you can stay out here,” Mackenzie told Waverly. “If two of us approach him, he’s going to get spooked. I’ll let you know right away if things go bad.”
“You sure?”
Mackenzie nodded and closed the door. She crossed the parking lot and entered the apartment building about twenty seconds after Morgan had stepped inside. She skipped the elevator in the lobby, opting for the stairs. When she came to the second floor and started down the hallway, she spotted him again. Morgan was apparently getting home for the day, unlocking his apartment door while juggling his two bags of groceries as Mackenzie approached him.
Morgan nearly dropped one of the bags as he fumbled with his keys. Mackenzie hurried forward, not only trying to be nice, but to take him off his guard. It might be a sneaky trick, but it would be a good way to see how quickly his demeanor changed when she told him why she was there.
“Let me help you,” she said, taking the nearly fallen bag.
Morgan, startled, looked up at her. His surprise was quickly replaced with gratitude as he smiled at her. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”