Even the Wind: A Jonas Brant Thriller

by Phillip Wilson

``I thought the same thing,’’ Mallek said. ``We’re lucky to have such a talented detective on our doorstep. You’ll be able to help us get to the bottom of this…mystery.’’

  ``Not without your help.’’

  ``I’m all yours,’’ Mallek said. She smiled at him teasingly. ``Is there anything else you want to know about Eichel?’’

  ``What can you tell me?’’ Now it was Brant’s turn to cross his legs. The bed was uncomfortable. His back ached. He would have preferred to be sitting at his chair but he’d be damned if he was going to lose the momentum of the interview.

  ``He spent a lot of time on the lake by himself.’’

  ``In what way?’’

  ``Every morning. Before he took his customers out. He’d go out for an hour or so.’’

  ``What’s odd about that? He was quite the Bear Grylls from what I can tell. Is it really that surprising?’’

  ``I thought you might like to know, that’s all.’’

  ``It’s good you kept such close tabs on him. Observations like that can be helpful.’’ Brant said, doing his best to be as sarcastic as possible.

  Mallek shrugged and rolled her eyes. She had the power to disarm with a single look. He’d known women like her in the past and he decided she’d make a hell of a doctor.

  ``Are we almost done?’’

  ``Am I making you uncomfortable?’’

  Mallek shook her head so that the fringe of her hair brushed past her carefully drawn eyebrows. ``Not at all. We’re colleagues now I suppose. But you really need to consider how you’re going to approach the others. You may think you’re being cute, but the others may not take it in the spirit you intend. Especially Burnard. You’re going to have a difficult time with that one. It’s a good thing you have me by your side.’’

  ``I’ll try my best not to be so cute. But I have one other question.’’

  ``Sure.’’

  ``Why work with me? What’s in it for you?’’

  Mallek shrugged. ``I read a lot of Patricia Cornwell when I was a kid. I thought it might be fun to be a sleuth.’’

  When Mallek and Brant reached the dining room, they found King and the others sitting at a wooden bench. No one spoke. A roaring fire sputtered and sparked at the end of the hall.

  The room was warm and cozy but dampness hung heavy. Lunch had been served. The dishes had been cleared. A few of the gathered nursed mugs of coffee or tea. Brant’s stomach began to rumble.

  King rose to greet them.

  ``This is everyone. Well, almost everyone. We had a caretaker who left before the weather started to change.’’

  ``So yesterday?’’

  ``Yesterday afternoon.’’

  ``Okay, we’ll follow up with him later.’’

  ``Her. It’s a woman. She wasn’t here when the accident happened.’’

  ``We should get started.’’

  ``Mr. Brant is a police lieutenant with the Boston Police Department and will be conducting an investigation of the…death…of Franz Eichl,’’ King said, addressing the group.

  ``I thought the roads were closed.’’ The comment came from a middle-aged man at the back of the room. The father of the family that had been staying at the lodge, Brant guessed.

  ``The lieutenant was staying at the cabin down the road. I’ve asked him to relocate to the lodge for the remainder of the investigation.’’

  Mark Burnard studied Brant with the look of a chef whose cooking had suddenly turned to disaster.

  ``Lucky for us.’’

  Brant ignored the comment.

  ``This is such bullshit.’’ Burnard rose to leave. The mood in the room lightened when he’d stormed out.

  ``Is it something I said?’’ Brant asked, turning to King.

  ``Mark was close to Franz. He’s upset.’’

  ``He has a strange way of showing it. If they were friends, I would have thought he’d do everything he could to help.’’

  ``You saw them go at it last night. I wouldn’t exactly call them friends.’’

  ``So what were they then?’’

  ``Rivals and colleagues. That seems a bit weak but it’s the best I can think of at the moment.’’

  ``Mark is the life of the party,’’ Mallek said, interjecting herself into the conversation for the first time.

  ``Ms. Mallek will be helping me by the way,’’ King said, again directing his comments to the others seated throughout the room. ``If she asks to speak to you, she carries my authority.’’

  ``That’s reassuring.’’ The father at the back of the dining room crossed his arms in a defensive measure. Brant made note.

  ``It goes without saying that everyone here will do their best to give you whatever help you need,’’ King said, sounding eager.

  Brant remembered a sign on the main road. Warnings of rock slides, hairpin turns and roaming wildlife. Bears and moose had featured prominently on the black and red triangles affixed to telephone poles and roadside sheds. Black bears were known to roam the woods in the vicinity of the lodge. He’d been warned to wear a bell on his belt buckle or attached to his backpack so as to make enough noise that a bear wouldn’t be startled should he stumble across one of the beasts. Perhaps, he thought as he considered the Eichel investigation, the bell wasn’t such a stupid idea.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Brant returned to his room. The electric heater installed at the base of the wall burned orange, leaving the small space in a funk. The smells of cedar and cinnamon seemed to mix with day-old socks and sodden wool. Through the window, he could see that the rain had stopped but the day remained dark and dreary. Low, dirty clouds seemed to skirt the treetops outside the lodge. The clouds moved fast and ragged, as if they’d been ripped apart and hastily rearranged.

  He lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling with the door closed. Somewhere in another part of the lodge, a radio played. A local newscaster droned on about road closures, delays and alternative garbage collection schedules. His mind raced. Try as he might, he had difficulty slowing his thoughts to keep pace with the slow, methodical movements of his body.

  He gave up on rest and went out into the hallway where he bumped into Christine Mallek. The younger woman was carrying a box of latex gloves and jumped in surprise as they rubbed shoulders.

  ``I was looking for you.’’

  ``What’s going on?’’

  ``Ablen was able to get a call in over the radio. He wants an autopsy.’’

  ``An autopsy?’’ Brant fixed Mallek with a skeptical look. Ablen wasn’t likely to have asked a medical student to perform anything close to an autopsy on Eichl’s body.

  ``Maybe not those exact words. He wants the body examined. I was on my way.’’

  ``And you were coming to get me?’’

  ``You probably have the most experience with dead bodies.’’

  ``I seem to attract them like flies. Or maybe it’s iron filings and I’m a magnet.’’

  Mallek shook her head.

  ``Whatever you say.’’

  ``I want to see his room again first.’’

  Eichel’s room was a mirror. It had the same rustic, lived-in quality, the same basic bed, side table and bookshelves. Even the smell of hickory and cedar permeating the air seemed familiar. Had it not been for the unmade bed, the disheveled bed sheets and the blood-spattered wall, Brant could have mistaken the room for his own.

  Though the body had been removed, the room bore the unmistakable impression of its former occupant.

  As Brant crossed the threshold, a darkness seemed to enfold him, bleak and unpleasant yet slightly familiar. He thought of Maggie and the phantom that had seemed to stalk their home in the aftermath of her death. In the early days, he’d made a habit of pacing their room, lifting her clothes to his cheek, running his fingers over the bottles and potions she had kept on the bed stand. Often, he would sit on the bed and inhale slowly, believing that in time, if he was lucky, he would consume enough of her presence to remind him of who and what she had been.

>   At the foot of the bed, he pivoted back toward Mallek. The younger woman had followed him in and was standing two steps back, assessing the room with an admirable detached and almost clinical eye. Maggie had been the same. She’d watch him out of the corner of her eye, measuring his movements, recording his habits and ticks, his imperfections. But never judging.

  ``It’s eerie,’’ she said when she’d caught him looking in her direction.

  ``What is?’’

  ``The room. It feels like we’re violating him somehow.’’

  ``You get used to it.’’

  He surveyed the rest of the room. Small things — details — jumped out at him, as if he was looking at the scene for the first time. The carpet was askew. The clothes closet door was ajar. The hiking pants and jacket on the curtain railing had been pushed to one side. The books on the side table had been moved. The window had been opened a crack, allowing the earthy thick smell of the forest outside to invade the room. Had someone been here since they’d removed the body or had they disrupted the contents when they’d moved him? Perhaps he was imagining things. Perhaps not.

  ``See if you can find a cellphone or a diary or something.’’

  Brant began a search of the closet. Two pairs of newish looking hiking boots sat at the bottom of the cabinet as did a pair of Teva sandals. Three pairs of woolen socks and a pair of gray shorts were piled in a corner. A jacket and pants hung from a nail hammered into the back wall. Hiking shirts, two more pairs of pants and a wetsuit had been folded and placed on a set of cheap shelves. On the top shelf, he found a shaving kit, hairdryer and tubes of hair gel. Guide maps, a compass, a Swiss Army knife and a thermos had been thrown into a cardboard box. A box of condoms in foil wrappers lay nearby.

  ``Active or optimistic?’’ Brant asked as he lifted the condoms from their hiding place.

  Mallek smirked. ``As I said, he was popular.’’

  He moved to the bookshelf. Cheap paperbacks dominated — thrillers mostly. Dan Brown. Michael Crichton. Some Robert Harris. The hardcovers caught his eye. Sun Tzu’s Art of War, a leather-bound copy of the Catilinarian Orations, a treatise on urban development in the early 1940s, a history of Levittown.

  He reached for the top shelf and a set of hardbacks arranged neatly in a row.

  ``An academic?’’ he asked, holding aloft a thick volume on molecular biology, his pulse quickening at the find and the first tangible link to Allison Carswell. The spine beside the book he’d selected was equally as obscure: Verizon RISK Team, 2012 Data Breach Investigation. ``What on earth was he up to?’’

  He handed the first book to Mallek, who flipped through the pages with interest. She made a clucking sound as she returned the book to its shelf.

  ``Maybe the room’s former occupant,’’ she said with a shrug. ``Come and look what I found.’’

  Mallek had pulled out the side table’s drawer and dumped the contents at the head of the bed. She lifted a cellphone from a pile of papers and photographs.

  ``This what you’re looking for?’’ she asked.

  ``Perfect,’’ he said, placing the handset aside for the moment. ``What are those?’’

  ``Looks like photographs. Do people still make prints?’’

  He began sorting through the collection. Most were banal. The lake in early evening. The lake in the morning. A group of kayakers shot from somewhere offshore, the corner of the lodge barely discernible at the edge of the frame. A few were more interesting. Some of the photos were headshots, others were more animated. Brant’s eyes widened at the find as an electric charge ran through his body. The thrill of discovery once more.

  There was Eichel with his arm around a blond-haired woman dressed in lycra workout gear and a lifejacket. Another was the woman alone staring into the camera, an intense, almost hostile look fixated on the camera lens. Another was of a darker-haired woman dressed in shorts, t-shirt and sandals. She had the body of a swimmer — long limbs, slim at the waist but more muscular in the arms and shoulders. A third woman was the picture of a homecoming queen. She had a bright, cheery smile, blond hair and slender figure. She wore a two-piece swimsuit, accentuating a curved and supple body. She had big eyes set into a round face with broad forehead and a nose on the precipice of being too large.

  Brant again scrutinized the first sequence of photos and the blond-haired woman dressed in lycra, his hopes soaring as he placed the backdrop within the context of earlier photos he’d recently seen. There was no mistaking it. The blonde was Allison Carswell. A younger Carswell. She’d since changed her hair and altered her appearance slightly. But there was no doubt.

  He handed the photos of Carswell to Mallek, again reluctant to play his hand too early.

  ``Have you seen this woman before?’’

  Mallek took the photos in hand.

  ``Nope. Look at the date. These were taken last summer.’’

  She was right. The photos Eichel had taken of Allison Carswell were stamped in the righthand corner with a date and time indicating they’d been taken in June the previous year. Brant returned the Carswell photos to the collection.

  Most of the photos were in sequence, the oldest at the top of the pile. Eichel had been active. Each set of photos seemed to document a different partner in a different location. Curiously, a two-year gap appeared in the middle of the photo stack. Either Eichel had grown bored of his photographic habits, or he’d had a dry spell with no partners for a period.

  ``He seemed to like athletic women,’’ Brant said, setting the photos aside for the moment.

  ``He liked all women. Didn’t matter the age, the color, the size. Did you find anything in there?’’

  Mallek thrust her jaw in the direction of the cellphone. He’d turned it on, summoning the device to life. A set of icons popped onto the screen.

  ``No security code, meaning he was either lazy or didn’t think the phone had anything on it worth protecting.’’

  ``I’m going with lazy,’’ Mallek said, again almost biting the words.

  The phone was an iPhone 6 Plus. Brant held it in his hand. The screen was big. The biggest he’d ever seen on a cellphone. The device would barely fit into the pocket of a jacket, let alone into a pair of hiking pants or jeans. Yet the phone’s screensaver was a picture of the lake. Most of the apps were for hiking and biking. A few were games or newsreaders. Brant frowned as he ran his finger over the screen, flicking from one set of apps to the other.

  ``What is it? You look like you either need to go to the bathroom or you’ve eaten something that’s making you sick.’’

  ``He didn’t use social media? I don’t see any Facebook or Twitter apps. That doesn’t seem in character.’’

  ``Let me see.’’

  Mallek took the handset and made her own search of the device. Presently, she handed it back.

  ``You’re right.’’

  ``Did you and he share anything on Facebook?’’ Brant asked, recalling Eichel’s use of Twitter and the photos he’d posted from the Red Sox game with the Orioles. ``Do you remember if he had an account?’’

  She pursed her lips and made a face as she thought. She hadn’t given it much consideration. They’d been so busy during the summer. One group after the other had come into the lodge in quick succession. There’d been downtime at night, of course. But she’d used that for the mundane life at the lodge. Laundry, cleaning, studying. She’d brought a laptop computer and a tablet but the longer she’d spent by the lake, the less time she’d spent online.

  ``Come to think of it now, no. We didn’t do anything on Facebook. I don’t recall him having a profile.’’

  ``Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’’ Brant asked, again recalling his Twitter feed.

  She thought about the question for a moment.

  ``You’re right, actually.’’

  ``Look here. The messaging app is empty. E-mail too. It’s like he was either paranoid about what he was doing online, or someone’s wiped the phone. Is that possible? Could someone have done that?’’


  Mallek shook her head. ``I suppose.’’

  ``Did you see him use his cellphone?’’

  She rolled her eyes as if the question was out of place. In the circumstances and given Eichel’s age, it probably was.

  ``Every time I saw him, he had his face buried in that stupid screen. It’s one of the reason….’’

  ``Yes?’’

  ``It’s one of the reasons we stopped whatever it is we had going. I can’t stand inattention. If you’re going to be with me, I need all of you.’’

  ``What about the location finder?’’

  ``What do you mean?’’

  ``Those kinds of phones keep a log of where you go with them. No one really knows about it but it’s there. Go to the general setting and tap through to system services.’’

  She did as she was told. She flipped rapidly through a set up screen before coming to the setting screen. The screen was split. One side was for the settings. The second was for the system services found underneath the location services setting. A row of green toggles aligned on the far right of the screen. Brant smiled triumphantly as he scanned the row. Eichel had forgotten to turn off the frequent locations tab, or perhaps he hadn’t known the phone had been tracking his comings and goings. Whatever the explanation, they now had a record of his travels. And more importantly, the history showed the times and places he’d most frequently visited.

  ``I had no idea you could do this.’’

  ``Most people don’t.’’

  Mallek tapped into the tab that took her to the list of frequent locations. With the exception of one entry, the history was unexceptional. Most of the places where Eichel had taken the phone were to be expected. The lodge. Out onto the lake. To the nearby town. She swiped into the marker at the top of the list and pressed the entry, taking her to a map of the location.

  ``Here, let me see that.’’

  Brant took the phone in hand. It was lighter than he’d thought. And slim. He’d been meaning to upgrade but had put off the decision. The thought of going to the mall with Ben to shop for a handset and a calling plan — well, he had better things to do with his time. Better things to do with his money, too.