"Huh?” Rusty seemed a little rattled, as if he’d surprised himself by winning that battle. “You two can work with me. I’ve only got Roger, and that thin fellow there, a teacher at the academy who came over to help search—Oliver Something.”
Rusty gathered them together. “We’re going to drive around to the west side of Lorton and take a secondary trail up the mountain. It’s steeper and rougher than the trail the kids went up on. If she wandered off the main trail, there’s a chance she’s worked herself around to this one. We’ll go up on the trail, then bushwhack our way down, covering the area between the two trails. Sam here will be searching for signs of her scent.”
Rusty held out a dirty sock to a medium-sized brown and white dog. The dog sniffed and cocked his head, his intelligent brown eyes looking eagerly at his handler. Frank had worked with Sam before. If anyone could find Heather, this little mutt could. They set off up the trail.
A sharp blast of wind cut through Frank’s jacket. He wished he’d worn his heavier coat, but it had been twenty degrees warmer when he’d left the house this morning. “Geez, the temperature’s dropping like a stone. We’d better find her quick.”
“It’s worse than you think,” Rusty told him. “Because it was so nice this morning, the hikers all took off their jackets and left them at the lean-to halfway up the main trail because they were overheating. They picked them up again on the way down—we found Heather’s still there.”
“You mean the kid’s out here without a coat?” Frank asked. “She could die of exposure.”
“The situation is very serious,” Rusty agreed. “I tried to make that clear to Mr. Payne, but he didn’t seem to understand. He kept saying, ‘This experience will test her resourcefulness.’ Well, let me tell you, all the resourcefulness in the world isn’t going to save you when you’re wearing jeans and a cotton sweatshirt in an Adirondack snowstorm.”
“How come when they all picked up their coats at the lean-to, no one noticed one was still there?” Earl asked.
“That’s what I’d like to know.” Rusty paused and looked up the trail. “Heather obviously got separated from the group somewhere above the lean-to, yet no one noticed she was gone until they got all the way out to the trailhead. How can that be?”
“I think I might be able to answer that,” Oliver said from behind them on the trail.
They all stopped and turned to look at him.
“Heather hasn't adjusted very well to the routine at the academy. She has a bad habit of not only getting herself in trouble, but also pulling other students into it with her. I think many of the kids avoid her because they don’t want to risk losing points.”
“That seems kind of mean,” Earl said. As the youngest in the group, he had the clearest memory of the pain of high school.
“You mean you think the other kids noticed she was missing but didn’t say anything?” Rusty asked.
“Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t intentional,” Oliver said, but Frank thought the expression on his face wasn’t as certain as his words.
“Heather might have been trailing along behind because she didn’t like being on the hike and no one wanted to walk with her,” Oliver continued. “So they probably thought she was right behind them and would pick up her coat when she got to the lean-to.”
Frank didn’t comment. No point in speculating how it had happened; the bottom line was, the kid was lost. But he didn’t like the feeling he was getting that some of the other searchers from the academy might not be that motivated to find her. A few fine flakes of snow drifted down, the advance troops for the invading army.
The trail was now steep enough to make conversation a waste of energy. They scrambled up a bare outcropping of rock, and the trail leveled out for a bit. The dog had been trotting along beside them, staying on the trail and showing no signs that he had scented anything. Occasionally Sam took a detour out into the brush, but he always returned promptly. Now, as they paused to take a drink, Sam lay down and stared at his handler hopefully, as if to say, "You promised me a better outing than this.”
"She hasn’t been through here,” Rusty confirmed. “We’re about a half an hour from the summit. Once we’re there, we can cross over to the main trail. I want to go partway down that way to a spot where the trail’s a little ambiguous.” They slogged on, their hard breathing leaving puffs of vapor in the air.
A small cascade of rocks skittered down the path as Earl stumbled and went down hard on one knee. When Frank offered him a hand up, he realized Earl had no gloves and had been walking with his hands in his pockets. His skin was red and chapped, the nailbeds white with cold. “Here, Earl, wear my gloves for a while until your hands warm up,” Frank offered.
“Nah, I’m okay.”
Frank pulled his gloves off. “Do it. That’s an order.”
Earl accepted the gloves, and within ten minutes Frank began to feel the effects of his generosity. Even when you weren’t using your hands to climb the rocky outcroppings of the trail, it was difficult to keep your balance with them in your pockets. More than once he teetered and caught himself by grabbing at an overhanging branch with his numb fingers.
“The summit is just past these rocks,” Rusty said. “We can’t bushwhack here—it’ll be easier to cut across the top and come down a way on the other trail. Be careful. This is slippery."
Frank looked at the huge gray rock, worn smooth by centuries of wind and rain, looming above him. If this was the easy route, he didn’t want to think about the hard one.
Rusty scaled the rock first, effortlessly finding hand-holds and toe-holds in the slightest indentations. Oliver went next. Thin but agile, he climbed the rock quickly, slipping only once. Sam took a long detour through some scrubby evergreens and found an easier way up for a creature with four paws.
Earl handed him the gloves. “You go next, Frank. Then you can toss them back down to me.”
Frank suspected the worried look on Earl’s face had nothing to do with the missing girl. Probably figures he’ll have to shove me up this thing from behind, he thought as he began to climb. The fine, icy snowflakes glazed the rock with a slippery film. Earl had been right to give him the gloves—getting a grip would be impossible without them. He could see Oliver’s and Rusty’s boots a foot or so above his head when his left leg slid out from under him. He scrabbled desperately to keep from falling. Earl gasped, but Rusty remained calm. “There’s a foothold for your left foot about six inches up from where your right foot is,” he directed.
Frank found it and pushed himself up. Oliver and Rusty grabbed his arms, and he landed on the summit with all the dignity of a wide-mouthed bass flopping on the dock of a fishing cabin. Christ, he was getting old! Looking down at what he had just climbed made him a little queasy, and he stepped back as Earl made the ascent.
The force of the wind whipping from the west brought tears to his eyes, and he turned his back to the view of Lake Placid that would lay in that direction. There was nothing to see from the summit now. The gray sky had descended over Lorton and they stood within the clouds.
They crossed the summit, found the main trail, and headed down. “Look there,” Rusty said after they'd been going downhill for ten minutes. “When you’re coming down the path and you look ahead, you see the trail marker on that birch down there.”
Frank could barely pick out the round blue disk with adk printed on it that indicated this trail was maintained by the Adirondack Mountain Club.
“But,” Rusty continued, “if you’re tired and looking down at your feet, you see how the rocks come together to form a natural pathway that steers you over to the right. It’s possible Heather could have gone off the path here, and by the time she realized it, she couldn’t find her way back to the marked trail.” Rusty called to Sam and offered him another sniff of the worn sock belonging to Heather that had been provided to the searchers. Sam refreshed his memory and took off down the unmarked path. But within a minute he had circled back, his head cocked expectantly.
>
Rusty shrugged. “I guess I was wrong—he’s not catching her scent down there."
Frank hesitated. Rusty’s theory had a lot of merit. The false trail seemed more natural to follow at that point than the marked trail, and the marker, so far down the path, would be easy to overlook. But Sam didn’t scent her, and Frank knew from experience that the dog couldn’t be fooled.
“Let’s start bushwhacking between this trail and the trail we came up on,” Rusty directed. They walked another fifteen minutes, as the sky grew darker and the air grew colder.
They crashed through the underbrush, regularly calling Heather’s name, until they reached the secondary trail, then they slowly worked their way down and across to the other trail.
On their third switchback between the two trails, Earl shouted, “Hey, there’s the lean-to.” They all sat down on the edge of the platform and drank from their water bottles. Sam made a disinterested circuit of the lean-to, then drank eagerly from the collapsible dish Rusty had brought for him. He flopped down and rested his head on his paws.
Rusty stared at the dog.
“What’s the matter?” Frank asked. “He’s not giving out on us, is he?”
“Look at him. He’s totally relaxed. He’s not showing any sign that he scents Heather. And we know she was in this spot—she left her jacket here. Her scent should be strong.”
A few months ago, Frank would have assumed the dog was unreliable. But Sam had proved his mettle on another investigation, and that forced Frank to look at the facts from a different perspective. Fact one: Heather had been here. Fact two: Sam wouldn’t miss the scent he’d been asked to follow.
“Give me that sock,” Frank demanded. He turned it over and found two small black letters, a laundry mark, on the sole. “MT,” he said. “This isn’t Heather's sock.”
“MT would be Melissa Trenk, Heather’s roommate,” Oliver said. “She didn’t come on the hike.”
Frank threw the sock down. “Jesus H. Christ! We wasted nearly two hours sending that dog tracking the wrong person.”
Rusty immediately got on his walkie-talkie to confer with the other searchers. While he talked, Frank quizzed Oliver. “Who gave Rusty that sock?”
The young teacher paused to think. His soulful brown eyes and earnest expression unconsciously mimicked Sam the dog. “I guess it must have been Mac, or maybe Steve Vreeland. He’s one of the Pathfinders. There was a lot of confusion when we left the academy—assembling the search party, finding the articles of clothing, running back for water bottles.”
Rusty signed off and outlined the new plan. “The team who took the westernmost side of the mountain was also using one of Melissa’s socks. But the team on the main trail was using Heather’s coat. Unfortunately, the dog on that team was the least experienced of the three. His handler said he seemed to pick up Heather’s scent right at that spot above us that I pointed out. They followed it for a while, but lost it at a little stream.
"They’re going to head back up the trail with the coat,” Rusty continued. “Sam and I will go down to meet them. You guys go back to the spot in the trail where she seems to have wandered off and follow it to the stream. Take the radio—we’ll stay in touch and meet there.”
Frank tramped wearily back up the trail, letting Earl take the lead. His feet were freezing; with every step he felt a hot stab in his thighs. He’d been climbing much faster than he would on a recreational hike, trying to keep up with the younger men. To take his mind off the pain, he asked a question.
"Oliver, Heather was one of the kids on the camping trip when Jake Reiger was attacked, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah, it's like she’s a bad-luck magnet. I’ve heard the other kids are somehow blaming her for that.” Oliver shook his head. "Ridiculous.”
“I noticed when we were bringing the campers down that Heather had hardly any hair. If she’s recovering from chemotherapy, it’s going to be even harder for her to survive this cold.”
"Chemotherapy? Oh, no—Heather didn’t lose her hair to cancer. Mac made her shave it off.”
“Why?” Frank and Earl asked in unison.
“It’s part of the treatment that all the kids have to give up their outrageous fashion statements—take out the nose rings, get rid of the hot pink hair.”
“So if a girl has her hair dyed a crazy color, Mac shaves her head?” Frank was appalled. Caroline had once poured peroxide on a big chunk of her dark hair.
She looked like a skunk, and Estelle had cried, but Frank had just laughed. It was only hair, and it had grown out. Some things weren’t worth fighting over.
"No, he makes them dye it back to a normal color. But Heather came to the academy with dreadlocks,” Oliver explained.
“But she’s white.”
“Well, she has this frizzy kind of hair and she was trying to get it to form dreadlocks, but it turned into a big matted lump,” Oliver explained. “There was no way to comb it out, so they shaved her head.”
Frank glanced at Earl to gauge his reaction. He looked distinctly unconvinced. Oliver must have noticed their expressions.
“I know it sounds harsh, but her hair really was pretty disgusting. And Mac’s been letting her wear a hat, even in class, until it grows back in.”
“She better have that hat on now,” Frank said, as another gust of wind blew sharp ice particles into his face. Now that they were lower down on the mountain, the temperature must be right at the freezing point, making the precipitation neither rain nor snow, but an icy sleet. The thick clouds and the dense canopy of balsam and pine had chased off the last moments of daylight.
Not yet pitch-black, but dark enough for Frank to pull out his flashlight as they searched for the false fork in the trail that Heather must have followed.
“I think this is it.” Frank used the flashlight beam to point out some rocks that formed a natural staircase leading off to the right. The three of them followed it, making their way toward the creek that they could hear but not see.
Before long, the false trail disappeared, and they were dodging between trees and rocks. What lay ahead looked the same as what lay behind; easy to see how Heather had gotten confused.
To Frank’s left, Earl tripped, and the steepness of the mountainside kept him stumbling forward with gathered momentum. Frank could hear him crashing through the brush, then Earl yelled, and the sound of running stopped.
“Are you all right?” All they needed now was a searcher with a broken ankle. Frank played his flashlight beam through the trees until he finally picked out Earl lying on the ground with his arms wrapped around a bent sapling.
“I'll be right down to help you,” Frank said.
“No! Don’t!" Earl held up one hand while clinging to the tree with the other. “I’m at the edge of a rock ledge here. I almost went over.” He leaned forward gingerly. “It’s about a thirty-foot drop. I can’t see the bottom too good, but the stream’s down there. I’m going to work my way across to where it’s less steep. Shine the light down here.”
Frank and Oliver watched from above as Earl edged his way across on all fours until he reached ground level enough to stand on.
“Do you think Heather could have gone over that?” Oliver asked.
“I think we better get down below and check the area very carefully.”
“I see a way down,” Earl shouted, “and I think I hear the dogs.”
Frank radioed Rusty as he and Oliver picked their way down to Earl. Together, the three of them made it to the creek bed as Sam came tearing into view. Nose down and tail up, Sam shot past them, baying in excitement.
He headed straight for the base of the cliff.
Chapter 12
For the second time in a week, Frank found himself helping Rusty Magill carry a stretcher through the woods.
They had discovered Heather slumped at the foot of a large boulder, where she’d gained some meager protection against the biting wind. A purplish bump distended her forehead and scratches covered her face and hands.
She probably had tumbled down from the ledge. Her skin was gray and clammy, her pupils dilated, and she muttered incoherently. Hypothermia had definitely set in—they had found her just in time and began treatment immediately. Another hour and it would have been too late.
As they loaded her into the ambulance, the paramedic temporarily removed the oxygen mask. The blue had receded from Heather’s face; a healthy pinkness edged back. Her gray eyes, more alert now, looked straight into Frank’s, and she spoke: "The bastards left me. They left me on this damn mountain to die.”
Then the stretcher was hoisted inside, the ambulance doors slammed shut, and Heather was whisked away.
The DEC team had dispersed to their various vehicles, packing up dogs and equipment. Rusty stood still among all the activity, his gaze on the receding ambulance lights. Frank stood beside him, contemplating a tire track, bracing for the inevitable. He didn’t have long to wait.
"I suppose you’re going to tell me this was a coincidence.” Rusty spoke without moving his eyes.
Frank felt a weariness entirely unrelated to all his climbing. It was that all-pervasive enervation that comes from knowing an impossible task lies ahead, and you have no choice but to take it on.
"No, Rusty. You know I always say I don’t believe in coincidence. I’ll go over to the hospital later and talk to Heather. Then I’ll go back to the academy tomorrow to see what MacArthur Payne has to say.” Frank crammed his hands in his pockets. And get myself crucified for my trouble by everyone who wants to make sure the North Country Academy stays in business.
“I'M SO GLAD YOU CAME by this afternoon.” MacArthur Payne stood at the door of his office, beaming at Frank like a maître d’ greeting a valued customer.
“Wanted to update you on the trespassing problem. I think I may have solved it.” Frank wondered how long this pretense of charm and civility would last once the real reason for his visit became apparent.
“Wonderful. Let’s take a stroll around the grounds and you can tell me about it.”
Frank Bennett Adirondack Mountain Mystery Box Set Page 35