Bear Bait (9781101611548)

by Beason, Pamela

  Blake looked stunned. “Good grief. Who knew all that other stuff was in there?”

  Sam quartered a small tomato and tossed it into the bowl. “You think a thirteen-year-old would know the Fifth Amendment?”

  “Oh, man,” Blake said, “Never underestimate what they know. Hannah informed me yesterday that plants bend toward light because the side away from the sun grows faster. I work in a friggin’ greenhouse, and I didn’t know that. It’s kind of scary.”

  Sam laughed. “I know what you mean. Lili told me ‘Aunt Sam’ sounded like a transvestite.”

  They both turned toward Chase.

  “You don’t want to hear any of my stories about the baby monsters I’ve encountered, believe me.” He set down his wineglass, picked up a quarter of tomato, and tossed it into his mouth. “‘Five,’ huh?”

  She knew that he was thinking about the numbers carved into the trees. “Kind of weird how all these numbers keep cropping up, isn’t it?” she said.

  “It’s downright hinky.” He grinned.

  She cleared the salad makings from the table.

  “Silverware? Plates?” Chase asked.

  Sam pointed to a drawer and a cabinet. “And placemats in that drawer over there.”

  It seemed so natural to have Chase there. How did he do that, just slip into place wherever he found himself? She watched with admiration as he discussed cooking with Blake throughout the meal. Chase favored fiery Asian and Mexican dishes. Blake was studying French cuisine right now at the culinary program at Bellingham Technical College. They found common ground in French-influenced Vietnamese food. Her own cooking didn’t extend much further than grilled cheese sandwiches, so she wasn’t able to contribute much other than her opinion as a taster.

  After dinner she left the men to clean up while she attended to laundry. Simon kept her company from the top of the dryer, paws curled under his chest as he supervised the transfer of wet clothes from the washer. He took offense when she moved him aside to press the Start button. She was cuddling him against her neck and apologizing when Chase came in with a serious expression on his face and a manila envelope in hand.

  She looked up from Simon’s fur. “What’s that?”

  “Autopsy results. Lisa Glass.”

  “Anything unusual?”

  “We got a match on her prints.”

  “So you know where she’s from? You found her family?”

  “We don’t have a verified identity yet. Her prints match those found on the padlock of the mine shed the C-4 was stolen from.”

  “Lisa stole the C-4?” Sam yelped. The girl had seemed so young and vulnerable. “I suspected she wasn’t telling the whole truth about what happened at Marmot Lake, but…that’s a surprise.” Now it seemed probable that C-4 had been used to open up the mine. What went wrong? Who set the fire? “What else?”

  “Lisa died of bleeding into the brain. Apparently it was too slow to be caught at first, and by the time they realized her confusion wasn’t just smoke inhalation, it was too late.” He opened the envelope and thumbed through some photos, selected one, and thrust it toward Sam. “She had a tattoo on the back of her left shoulder.”

  The image gave her a start. An upside-down peace symbol, or perhaps a stylized tree, surrounded by curling ivy. “Was this a permanent tattoo?”

  “Henna; I’m told that can last as long as three weeks.” Chase raised an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”

  “Joe Choi’s daughter has this same tattoo. Can I take this?” She waved the photo in the air.

  Chase looked startled. “Uh…no. I shouldn’t even be sharing this file with you.”

  She took the photo to her office, woke her computer and scanner from hibernation mode. She quickly scanned the photo and printed it on her color copier. Chase followed her in and frowned at her actions, but said nothing. She handed the original back to him. “What does that tattoo mean?”

  “We don’t know yet. We’ve got a tech running it through the data banks. Of course, it might just be a popular design, like dragons and angels.”

  Dragons and angels. Some days Sam felt like she was living in a foreign country.

  “And remember that slip of paper you gave me from Lisa’s Bible? The Seattle address is the Veterans Administration Office.”

  Sam raised an eyebrow. “What would Lisa be doing with the VA?”

  Chase shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “And the other note, Frazier in Wyoming?”

  “We’re still working on that.” He returned everything to the envelope. “I may find out more tomorrow.”

  They went back into the living room and watched a sci-fi show with Blake. Sam liked the way that the women characters were warriors equal to the men. She liked even more the fact that Chase and Blake either didn’t see anything remarkable about that, or at least chose not to comment on it if they did.

  Chase showed no sign of leaving. Surely he and his partner were booked into some hotel. During a commercial, she asked, “Where’s Nicole?”

  “San Juans again,” he said. “With hubby, ’til Tuesday.”

  “That must be nice.”

  “Must be.” He made a face. “She left me to deal with the task force meeting in Seattle tomorrow at eight thirty.”

  At ten o’clock, she yawned and stretched elaborately, raising her arms over her head. “I’ve got to be back at work by ten tomorrow morning. I have my alarm set for five,” Sam told him. “I was planning on an early night.”

  Beside her on the couch, Chase stretched, too. “Sounds good to me. Seattle’s a two-hour drive.”

  She wasn’t sure what to make of that and she couldn’t bring herself to ask with her housemate not twenty feet away. She stared at Chase and tried to divine what was going on behind his clear brown eyes.

  Blake snorted from his recliner. “Do you two need instructions?”

  When Sam stopped laughing and could breathe again, she stood up and held out her hand to Chase. “Coming?”

  “I thought you’d never ask. Good night, Blake. Thanks for dinner.”

  “Any time, Bro.”

  Bro? Now she was sure that these guys had colluded. What personal details had Blake shared with Chase? Even more worrisome, what had Chase asked?

  Thank goodness that her sheets were newly washed and the room was in reasonable condition, her sunflower quilt smoothed over the queen bed, and her old sweats kicked into the closet.

  “An honest-to-God bed,” Chase remarked happily. “I was beginning to think you didn’t own one.”

  The cat observed from her bookcase headboard as they undressed, but she nudged him out of the bedroom before she stripped off her underwear. Chase slid between the sheets, and she climbed in after him, pulling herself up on top of him, relishing the warm hardness of his chest against her bare breasts. Putting an arm on either side of his head, she pressed her lips to his, and felt his instant reaction hard against her inner thigh.

  “Mi corazón,” he groaned, his hands cupping her backside.

  “Querido.” This time it came out sounding natural. With enough practice, she could get used to these endearments. And she would certainly welcome getting used to the other feelings she was experiencing right now.

  After their lovemaking, lying on her side with Chase snuggled up against her, she wondered if the noises she’d made had been as loud as the hallelujah chorus ringing in her head. She wavered between wanting to drift into a cozy sleep and wanting to repeat the performance. Who knew when they’d meet again?

  Chase was still awake. She could tell by the firmness of his arms around her, although his breathing was slowing. He shifted a hand, pulled back her hair, and blew softly across her sweaty neck.

  Suddenly she was back in the dark woods, a madman close enough to touch. I could kill you right now.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She rolled over to face him. “After you left, I stayed Thursday night at Marmot Lake.”

  He sighed. “I knew you would. What happened?
”

  She told him everything: the bear-kill site, the booby trap she’d set, the intruder and the white rose and the terrifying encounter.

  “‘It’s not yet time’?” Chase echoed, rising up on one elbow to peer down at her. “What the hell does that mean?”

  She shivered. “I don’t know.”

  “God, Summer.” He stretched out beside her again and pulled her over against him, spooning. “You are going back to the bunkhouse, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” she promised. “At least at night.”

  “Two more weeks out there?”

  “Yep.” Two weeks until unemployment. And then the trip to Kansas; her father’s wedding. Things to look forward to.

  “Do you know a man called Jack Winner in Rushing Springs?” Chase asked.

  “I don’t know anyone over there except for park staff. Who is he?”

  “The owner of the truck you found in the Marmot Lake lot. Your friend Choi went to see him on Friday.”

  That chafed a little, that neither Chase nor Joe had told her. “And?” she prompted.

  “Winner said he didn’t know the area was off-limits now. He has no criminal record. He owns a small business, a little furniture-making shop. But according to Choi, he was sweating like a racehorse after the Kentucky Derby, so he may be hiding something.”

  “Jack Winner,” she repeated, memorizing the name.

  “Leave it to law enforcement, Summer. Stay away from him.”

  “Of course I will.” Yeah, right. Winner could be responsible for the explosion and fire, for the bullet that barely missed her, or for that pool of bear blood at the end of the track. Jack Winner could be Lisa Glass’s murderer.

  “You could stay out of the field, couldn’t you?” Chase asked. “Just work in the office?”

  Good thing he couldn’t see the expression on her face. “I could.” But she wouldn’t.

  “You have a management plan to finish.” He caressed her cheek lightly with one finger. The tingling sensation made it difficult to maintain the sharp edge of annoyance she’d felt just a second ago. His finger brushed over her lips and slid down her neck. “You have a speech to write,” he added.

  The speech. The conference. Anxiety bubbled up, warring with the delicious sensation of his fingers on her skin. “Thanks for reminding me,” she groaned. “Now I’ll never get to sleep.”

  “I know a great way to relax.” He pressed his body full length against hers.

  When the chimes of her alarm began at 5 A.M., Chase was still curled up at her back. For once she was reluctant to leave civilization and return to the woods.

  19

  TWO double lattes and two and a half hours later, Sam drove off the Kingston ferry and headed west. As soon as she crossed the Hood Canal bridge onto the Olympic Peninsula, she called Joe Choi.

  “Morning, Joe.”

  “Sam? Why are you so chirpy? It’s only seven thirty. I just walked out of the house.”

  “I wanted to catch you before you get busy, or out of range or something. Anything on that vehicle I reported Thursday night over at Marmot Lake? The bear poacher? Probably a smashed oil pan or a dented axle?”

  “Slow down, girl. How much caffeine have you had, anyway? We’re still checking it out.”

  “Are you checking on Garrett Ford like I suggested?”

  In the background, she heard the engine of Joe’s truck start up. “I had the Forks police drive by his place,” he said, “but he wasn’t home all weekend. Just FYI, we haven’t had any previous run-ins with him.”

  She’d bet that Ford was holed up somewhere working on his truck. “Can you check the repair shops in Port Angeles and Sequim for his truck?”

  “Maybe.”

  Why did he sound so reluctant? She said, “If I were you, I’d check his phone records to see if he called park headquarters on the dates threats were made against the staff.”

  “Whoa, Sam. As far as I know, Ford’s an upstanding member of the community. Do you know something that incriminates him?”

  She had to admit that she didn’t. “It’s intuition.”

  “That sounds like something Laura would say. Law enforcement generally requires more…like evidence.”

  “That’s what I’m looking for,” she said, annoyed. “Did anyone check that illegal track over the weekend?”

  “A bunch of us barricaded it off with brush Friday afternoon.”

  “Good.” Of course, that didn’t mean that a new track wouldn’t be blazed into the area, but maybe the barricade would slow them down for a while.

  “And before you ask, we’re checking the gate to Marmot Lake a couple of times a day,” he added. “Where will you be today?”

  “In the office, working on my management plan.” Just thinking about being closed up all those hours while the sun was shining made her antsy. At least she’d brought her own laptop from home, so the computer work would go a little faster. Surely she could salvage a couple of hours. “I thought I might pick up Lili later and take her out to the beach for that other interview I promised her. Think she’d go for that?”

  “In a heartbeat. Laura’s taking Lili to school right now. You can probably catch Laura on her cell.” He gave her the number.

  “I’ll call. Joe, what do you know about Jack Winner?”

  “You and Perez teaming up on me?”

  “What?”

  “He called five minutes before you did.”

  That was interesting. Did the two of them know something about Winner they didn’t want to tell her? “What’d he want?”

  There was a long pause, then he said, “Come to our house for dinner, Sam. Six o’clock.”

  Something he couldn’t say on a cell phone? That seemed ominous. But one of Laura’s home-cooked meals would be a good deal. “That sounds great, Joe. I’ll call Lili and Laura now. See you at six.”

  On the front door of the district headquarters was a poster asking for the public’s help in solving the case of Murdered USFWS Enforcement Officer Caitlin Knight. Sam studied the photo beneath the headline. Caitlin had been a large-framed, square-faced woman with long black hair; the type of woman that people called handsome instead of pretty. Her dark eyes stared confidently at the camera. She looked like a fighter, and Sam couldn’t help wondering what her last moments had been like. The text neglected to mention that only Caitlin’s right hand had been found so far. Be on the lookout for other body parts was probably too grim a message to print in a public notice.

  She lugged her laptop to her desk in the NPS/USFS district headquarters. In her box in the mailroom, a fax waited for her. It was from Richard Best at The Edge, asking when he would receive the draft of her speech.

  Sam bristled. Best wanted to censor her words? She supposed he did have a right to at least read them, since his company was paying her to do the speech. She decided to send it to him at the last minute so she could ignore any critique he had to offer.

  So far the speech consisted only of a few notes from newspaper articles about attacks against environmentalists. The discovery of a hit list of activists in Montana was the latest news she had stumbled across. Had Caitlin Knight been just a name on a list to someone? Were there more murders to come?

  It’s not yet time. She shivered, again feeling the rose thrower’s breath on her cheek. But those words could mean anything. He might be some wacko who believed in the Rapture, when only the enlightened few would be taken up to heaven. Her name certainly wasn’t on that list. The thought of religion reminded her of her preacher father, although he was not a fundamentalist type. The trip to Kansas was only two weeks away. She needed a haircut. Did she even possess a slip or a pair of pantyhose anymore? She’d have to check the bottom of her lingerie drawer.

  She clenched her jaw, poured herself a cup of sludge from the communal coffeepot, and sat down at her desk. If she didn’t focus, she’d never get anything done today.

  Because she used her own laptop from home and up-to-date software, her work on t
he environmental report and management plan went faster than she’d expected. She decided that the best tactic to protect the Marmot Lake area from illegal hunters and ATVs would be to again open up the picnic area and campground to the public. New latrines, bear-proof trash containers, and food-hanging lines would have to be installed. To start, she tackled the issue of public access: first, widen the trail around the lake into a nature loop accessible to wheelchairs and add educational signs about the ecology of the area; then, as soon as possible, blaze connector trails to meet up with the major east-west hiking paths that led out to the ocean beaches and up into the rugged valleys of the Olympic Mountains. She used a scanned map and a paint program to sketch out the suggested routes, making sure to avoid areas that were elk calving grounds and prime bear habitat.

  What to do with the Lucky Molly Mine was her biggest quandary. According to the map provided by the park service, the mine shaft opening was now on the national park side of the boundary and therefore off-limits to mining, but the old tunnel extended to the forest service side, which meant that there, it was fair game for prospectors. If the current crater was filled in and all signs of the mine’s existence removed, would people stop looking for it? That hadn’t stopped them so far. Or would it be better to fence off the opening, make the mine a feature of the area, and install a plaque detailing its unsuccessful history? That could be an opportunity to educate the public about the mining laws. But that could backfire, too: a new awareness might inspire a fresh crop of prospectors to take advantage of those laws.

  Except for the desk clerk out front who dealt with the public, Arnie Cole was the only other person in the building. She took the risk of approaching him in his office and asking his opinion.

  “Ah, I knew you’d be back,” he said with a grin. “Why not sell passes and let the yahoos dig for gold? They’re gonna do it, anyway; might as well make some money from it.”